


< The Orc Spawn Ride Again! >

by EldritchMage



Series: Kili and Tauriel [5]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2020-07-23 06:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20004043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EldritchMage/pseuds/EldritchMage
Summary: The Fellowship of the Ring has just left Imladris, and dark seem the fates of all Free Peoples of Middle Earth who would resist Sauron's malice. Many of Imladris's High Elves plan to flee the coming war by sailing West across the sea to Valinor. But Kíli, Tauriel, and their friends the Orc Spawn are not among those who plan to sail. Surely there must be something they can do to aid the fight against the coming dark.If they could just figure out what that something is...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As we get a little farther along in this story, I'll post a List of Characters as Chapter 1, but for now, here is a list of the junior Orc Spawn:
> 
> Míriel – “Jewel of a Daughter” (Quenya), nickname Míri, born 1343 (age 76)  
> Calion - “Son of the Light” (Quenya), born 1344 (age 75)  
> Alassë - “Merry” (Quenya), nickname Lassë, – born 1345 (age 74)  
> Izrilmagg – “Jewel of a Son” (Khazdul), nicknames Izril and Iz, born 1350 (age 69)  
> Annalisseo – “Gift of Grace” (Quenya), nickname Lissë, born 1356, (age 63)  
> Khelberr – “Strong Treasure” (Khazdul), nickname Khel, born 1359, (age 60)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> osellë = sister (Quenya)  
> kurvanog = fucking (Black Speech)  
>   
> Just for the record, I checked several websites to confirm that JRRT neglected to provide any word in any of his languages for Uncle. The consensus seemed to be to translate "brother of father" or "brother of mother" in some fashion, and I did find an example in Sindar. He didn't provide any word for Aunt, either. As Imladris Elves speak Quenya, the Quenya terms for mother, father, sister, and brother are:
> 
> háno = brother  
> nésa = sister  
> amil = mother  
> atar = father
> 
> That gives the terms:
> 
> Hánoamil = mother’s brother (Quenya)  
> Hánoatar = father’s brother (Quenya)  
> Nésamil = mother’s sister (Quenya)  
> Nésatar = father’s sister (Quenya)
> 
> I chose to use the maternal terms because Tauriel is the Elvish parent, not Kíli, so their children would likely use the maternal term for Uncle Lindir. And I confess that I liked how Hánoamil would sound when shrieked by Elflings eager for Uncle Lindir to tell them a story.

Lord Elrond’s Fellowship of the Ring passed the last gate to Imladris, and turned left towards Mordor.

As the tiny band – one Wizard, one Elf, one Dwarf, two Men, and four Hobbits – traipsed slowly out of sight, with only a single pack pony between them...

Only then did I grasp how slender was our hope.

It was all very well to speak nobly of how Elves, Men, and Dwarves had united in this quest to save our world, and quite another to feel the full weight of Middle Earth’s desperation.

Five in the fellowship were seasoned warriors – Boromir of Gondor, Estel the Dúnedain, the Wizard Gandalf, Prince Legolas of the Elvish Woodland Realm, and the Dwarf Gimli, cousin to my husband Kíli. But the four tiny Shire Hobbits, all friends and kin of my dear friend, Bilbo Baggins, were babes in all but name. None had ever seen an Orc, borne a weapon, or gone without a meal in their short lives. Yet one of them, Bilbo’s nephew Frodo, bore Sauron’s dread master Ring of Power, through which the evil Maiar strove to enslave all free people. The eight who accompanied Frodo had pledged to help the young Hobbit destroy the Ring, for only through its destruction would we save Middle Earth from Sauron’s malice and hatred.

So many hopes went with the Nine...

And so many fears.

I was not the only one in Imladris who struggled against worry, despair, and hopelessness. After the Nine had departed, my treasured husband, Kíli, moped about our kitchen as if defeat were already upon us. I understood – he’d lived away from his kin for so long, and Gimli’s arrival in Imladris had reawakened his yearning for them, which worsened when his cousin marched off to what would likely be his death. I felt little better myself – Legolas was my closest friend from his father’s realm, so when he set off beside Gimli, my heart nearly broke.

I was no stranger to despair – it had been my closest companion for several centuries. How deeply had I despaired during six hundred years of living entombment in the deep caverns of the Woodland Realm after Orcs had taken my parents? How deeply had I despaired when Ungoliant’s spawn, huge and terrible black spiders, had overrun the Great Greenwood, sickening the land until folk called it Mirkwood?

Yet I was also no stranger to how centuries of despair could evaporate in a seeming second, such as when a dark Dwarf archer had wandered into Mirkwood and turned my life upside down.

Within a few days of meeting Kíli, the great firedrake Smaug had died, Esgaroth on the Long Lake had been destroyed, and five great armies had fought before the gates of Erebor. Kíli had lost his uncle and brother in that battle, and I’d been banished from the Woodland Realm. With nowhere left to turn, we’d journeyed to Imladris, the last remaining gem of Elvish light and culture east of the sea, where Lord Elrond had offered us refuge. Thus began a new adventure, and an end to despair. Kíli had become Imladris’s Ambassador of All Things Dwarvish, and our closest group of friends, the Orc Spawn, had become his counselors.

Together, we’d overseen the restoration of the Dwarves’ Great Forest Road through Mirkwood, south of the Beornings’ lands, to speed the return of the Blue Mountain Dwarves to Erebor. Thanks to the efforts of Dwarvish masons and builders, and Elvish guides and guards, we’d completed the road in a year. During the next nine, most of the Dwarves who’d chosen to emigrate had completed the journey. Such speed had surprised both Kíli and me. We’d expected the caravans to continue far longer, given how reluctant Kíli’s folk could be to change. But Dwarves were practical and prudent, and moved swiftly when it suited them. Even before we’d finished the road, whispers had come that Orcs were massing in the south, particularly around the one-time Dwarvish stronghold of Dol Guldur. We’d passed that word west to Kíli’s mother in Thorin’s Halls; with Dís’s prodding, most Dwarves agreed that it was better to migrate when the combined forces of Dwarvish and Elvish warriors would oversee the last leg of their perilous journey, than to delay and face Orcish predations alone. Kíli and I had served many stints to watch over the folk who hurried east over the old stone road made new again, then straight north along the eastern border of Mirkwood to the reborn city of Dale, then Erebor just beyond.

Once the Dwarvish caravans were safely conveyed, Kíli and I had gone back to our previous service in Imladris’s guard, where it was our duty and honor to defend the beautiful city that had sheltered us. Despite the rumor of Orcs to the south, our days were bright with promise, so bright that we’d bravely made four children.

Míriel, our eldest daughter, had become an audacious archer, and was a great friend to all beasts. Thoughtful Izrilmagg had inherited his father’s skill with metals and gems, though he was as mad aback a horse as his older sister. Annalisseo was as graceful as her name; she was a thoughtful scholar, but she could be as stubborn as iron. Our youngest, Khelberr, who laughed far more than he pouted and loved to dance, had somehow shot up to be taller than both his parents, which pleased Kíli no end. He wasn’t so pleased about the pranks that Khel devised with daunting regularity, but as he’d often spoken of the antics he and his brother had gotten into as lads, Khel had come by his predilections naturally. Dís would’ve laughed and called it poetic justice. All of our children were skilled warriors – Míri favored the bow as did her father, and Izril liked axes; Khel and Annalisseo cherished their blades as much as I did mine.

Kíli and I had infected the Orc Spawn with our high hopes. Most of our close-knit group had originally come from the Imladris Guard, and included Kíli, me, and a handful of High Elves, mostly young ones. Lindir, Lord Elrond’s aide, was also with us. Our friends had the perfect incentive to disengage from the problems of Middle Earth, as had most of their kind. At any point of their long lives, for any reason, they could travel west to Mithlond – what many people called the Grey Havens – to board one of the incredible seafaring vessels harbored there, and sail away to Valinor, the land that the Valar had promised them. Many of the High Elves had already departed, leaving much of Imladris sadly abandoned. But the Orc Spawn Elves were not ready to abandon Middle Earth yet – in fact, they took such great interest in it that all had helped with the Dwarves’ emigration. They’d also taken great glee to involve themselves in every scrape my mischievous Kíli had managed to get into as part of his ambassadorial duties.

So close had the Orc Spawn become that we’d formed a colony, bringing a small part of Imladris’s emptiness back to life. When Lord Elrond had given Kíli and me leave to choose a house for ourselves, we’d bypassed many regal mansions to settle in a more modest, though still beautiful, house with a garden courtyard within. It looked out onto a pretty square with a central fountain, which had quickly appealed to the rest of the Orc Spawn as much as it had to us. Before long, our friends claimed the houses around our courtyard, and the fountain had overseen many fine gatherings. Drennal and Fallin, as well as Giriel and Rhiannel, had bonded, and had children of their own. Tethrandil and Lindir, Lord Elrond’s closest aide, had also bonded. Others of the Guard had caught our enthusiasm to claim others of the houses, and still others went to our children as they grew into their adulthood, so ours was a thriving enclave within a beautiful city. We held communal suppers at least once a week where we laughed, sang, danced, and shared stories together.

How we all delighted to watch our children grow tall and strong amid such grace and happiness! But even our joyful optimism of the past seventy-six years dimmed when the Fellowship left on their perilous quest.

Kíli was not the only one to mope as he made our supper pie; when I wandered out to the fountain, I found Giriel and Rhiannel sitting on the edge of the basin looking equally glum.

“It’s _kurvanog_ idiotic,” Giriel snorted with most un-Elvish heat. The Orc Spawn’s most outspoken maid was well known for her blunt manner and her love of Kíli’s Orcish curses. She had been the first of the High Elves to approach Kíli and me when we’d first come to Imladris, and quite the ringleader she was. But even my delight at my friend’s Orcish fluency didn’t bring much of a smile to my face. Kíli’s sadness had affected me, too.

“ _Aaye_ , Tauriel,” Rhiannel waved, so I joined him and Giriel by the fountain. “The Fellowship’s departure has upset us all, but with your friend the Woodland prince and Kíli’s cousin as part of it, both of you must be upset even more.”

“Kíli is very downhearted. And I...” I hesitated, but there was no reason to remain silent beside my closest friends. “Only nine to bear such a terrible burden east... I offer no disparagement to our champions, but they are not a fair match to Sauron’s nine Wraiths...”

“Reality isn’t disparagement. It’s reality.” Giriel plunked down beside me on the edge of the fountain, and took my hand in hers. “The two youngest Hobbits, especially... they have no sorcery at all, other than their ability to bring innocent happiness wherever they go.”

I swallowed the lump that clogged my throat. Kíli and I had hosted Merry and Pippin several times during their stay in Imladris. They were just as Giriel described them, and what a gleeful band they had made with our young, racketing through the city like the children they were. What would either do when confronted with an evil Wraith? Even the smallest Mirkwood Orc would terrify them.

“I wish there were ways to help,” I confessed, squeezing Giriel’s hands. “Something we could do, rather than sit helpless and fear the worst for them.”

The diplomatic Rhiannel sighed as he stared into the rippling water of the fountain basin. “I feel no differently. Too many of my folk prepare to leave for Mithlond, which is a double misfortune. It leaves fewer hands to stave off the evil, and it disheartens the ones left behind.”

I was not disheartened at the High Elves’ departure, for I was committed to the fate of Middle Earth as they were not. I was no Noldor Elf, but a lesser Sylvan Elf. Since none of my Nandor kin had ever seen the light of the Two Trees, I doubted that any ship would bear me to refuge in Valinor. Even if one could, I would not board it, for doing so would require me to abandon Kíli and our children, and I would sooner die.

Even so... though I understood the Noldor Elves’ desire to flee, I wondered how so many of them could bear to abandon the lands that had nourished them for millennia. Had they trod so lightly on Middle Earth for those millennia that they felt no part of it? Was not all that was good and green here worth saving from evil, no matter who lived in it? And what assured the Noldor that if Middle Earth fell to Sauron’s evil, he would be content with it? What would stop him from reaching across the Sea to Valinor itself? Sauron was such a creature of arrogance and spite that he would keep no promises of sanctuary, but would always want more, More, MORE.

Lindir joined us. He brushed flour from his hands, so he must’ve been making his supper just as Kíli was ours. We murmured greetings as he raised a hand in greeting.

“You’re as troubled about the Fellowship’s departure as I am,” he murmured.

“I’m just as troubled about all of our folk who leave in the other direction,” Giriel grumbled.

Lindir echoed Rhiannel’s sigh. “The stream has been steady for some time. Today’s departure will increase it, I fear.”

“So many long faces!” Kíli called. He smiled, but our friends knew him as well as I did, and they knew the difference between devil-may-care Kíli and trying-to-be-encouraging Kíli.

“They’re not the only ones.” This came from Fallin, the tactical leader of the Orc Spawn when we went into battle (Kíli was the mischievous leader, as well as the diplomatic one). Quiet concern replaced his normally calm demeanor as he nodded back to the house he shared with Drennal. “She hasn’t dried her tears since the Fellowship rode out.”

“And exactly why should I?” The maid herself slipped her arm around her beloved’s waist. Her eyes were red and her cheeks damp. “I can’t bear to think about those poor Hobbits and what those Orcs will do...”

She buried her head against Fallin’s chest. Giriel and I enfolded her in our arms to console her, but what was there to say? We all knew much about hope, even against seemingly slim odds...

The odds against the Fellowship were exceedingly slim.

Tethrandil was the last of our original company to join us, and he took in our despair quickly. He put his hand on Lindir’s shoulder in commiseration as we stood in silence. But as the silence lengthened, he gave his beloved a questioning look.

“Would it hurt to tell them, _a’maelamin_?”

Lindir didn’t have time to look uncomfortable before Giriel pounced.

“Tell us what?” Lindir’s uncomfortableness deepened, but our boisterous maid wasn’t put off. “Lindir, tell us what? What do you and Teth know that we don’t?”

Lindir’s air of flustered betrayal made us smile despite our circumstances. In all the years since Lindir had become one of the Orc Spawn, he’d proved that he was not merely overly fond of the books and of papers that were part of his duties for Lord Elrond. He was also brave and generous, and the best teller of the stories that our growing children loved, so much that they called him Hánoamil, Uncle. But every now and again, he seemed once more merely the fussy pusher of papers and parchments that he’d once been. This was one such time, but he could not put off the rest of us so easily. As the rest of us added our clamor to Giriel’s, he gave Teth such a furious glare that all of us laughed, especially Teth.

“I don’t _know_ anything,” our bookish friend protested, but his faint emphasis on _know_ was all the encouragement Giriel needed to continue her pursuit.

“Oh, then you suspect something, which is as sure as knowing something when you’re the one who suspects it,” Giriel poked poor Lindir with an accusing finger. “Spill it, Lindir!”

“By all the Valar, Giriel,” Lindir grumbled. “You get more Dwarflike every day, meaning tenacious, not to slight your folk, Kíli.”

“None taken,” Kíli grinned with more animation than he’d shown all day. “And good for you, Giriel! Right now, we need tenacious!”

“That’s right! Just so! Yes!” several of our friends chorused.

“So what is it that you don’t know but certainly suspect past all denying that something’s happening?” Giriel pressed.

“They will find out eventually,” Teth encouraged his _a’maelamin_ with a consoling pat. “For my part, I think it’s all to the good that they know now rather than later.”

“Just tell us!” Drennal begged, stamping her foot more like her son used to do when he was small. “The smallest crumb of hope is better than this mourning!”

That sobered all laughter and speech, for my friend was right.

“Lord Elrond sent messages south to the Lord and Lady of Lórien, and north to King Thranduil of Mirkwood,” Lindir conceded with a longsuffering sigh and a wave of a floury hand.

“Meaning what?” Giriel demanded.

“Meaning he sent messages,” Lindir shot back with more assurance.

“Messages about what?” Fallin mused, as the rest of us looked among ourselves. When our regard fell on Lindir, he didn’t try to protest, but merely sighed again.

“I don’t know, because he sent nothing written, in case the messengers came to grief. Oral only, and not within my hearing.”

Kíli glanced at me, and I nodded. I tended to be the strategist of our group, given my centuries as captain of King Thranduil’s guard. Maybe Lindir hadn’t heard the gist of Lord Elrond’s messages, but I’d heard thousands dictated by Mirkwood’s icy king.

“Lord Elrond likely sends word to the other Elvish Lords whose lands might offer respite to the Fellowship,” I ventured. “And if that is true, then Lord Elrond is doing what we also want to do – take action that could help the Quest.”

A murmur whispered among our friends. Rhiannel considered, and looked to Fallin.

“We don’t want to get our faithful Lindir in trouble for revealing Lord Elrond’s counsel under tremendous pressure,” Rhiannel said with a smile for Lindir. “But if our lord sends messages, I wonder if he wouldn’t also send more than that, once he knows more of how the Fellowship fares?”

“What, such as warriors?” our bellicose Giriel supposed. “Oh, do you think he’d send some of the Imladris Guard? And where would he send it?”

“It’s too early to say,” I surmised. “If the Fellowship is to take the Ring to Mordor, then the fight might concentrate in the east. But King Thranduil’s kingdom is in the north, as are the Dwarves of Erebor, and the Men of Dale and Esgaroth. All are strong folk, and Sauron is not fool enough to think they won’t resist him. He will move to counter them, I am sure of it.”

“Lórien will resist with even more strength,” Tethrandil added in his quiet voice. “That is the land of the Lady Galadriel, one of Sauron’s greatest foes back unto the First Age. He will not discount her, either.”

“The kingdoms of Men are under Sauron’s direct regard,” Lindir continued. “The Man, Boromir, came from Gondor, which sits hard on Mordor’s western border. Rohan is just north of there, and the principality of Dol Amroth is just south. Perhaps his regard is focused on them for now, but you are right to think Sauron will not overlook the other folk who have resisted him for so long.”

“So the fight may go in many directions,” Giriel summarized with a grimace.

“Only at first,” I amended. “It may well consume all we’ve named before the end.”

“So what can we do?” Giriel held her hands out when we all fell silent. “Because we must do something more than sit in Imladris and wring our hands.”

“So we shall, as we learn more,” Fallin assured us. “But not yet. What we must do now is listen, and watch, and wait. When Lord Elrond knows more, so shall we.”

When all of us looked to Lindir, he grimaced, but not because he refused to hear our silent pleas. “You aren’t the only one who hates to wait, Giriel. I like it no better.”

“So will you tell us when you hear something, then?” my spirited _osellë_ pleaded.

“It’s unfair to put Lindir on such a spot, Giriel,” Teth protested, but gently. “If you plan to for us to hare off into whatever eddy of this war that we first hear about, then no, Lindir won’t tell us anything. We cannot spend ourselves so rashly. Better we offer Lord Elrond our services as he chooses to deploy more strategically.”

“Makes sense; of course; yes, that’s wise,” we murmured. Teth was our oldest Orc Spawn by far, with great patience gained through a millennium as one of Lord Elrond’s most trusted aides. His sage advice had often helped Kíli to steer a wise path through his ambassadorial duties.

“I think we should at least tell Lord Elrond that we want to help,” Drennal suggested. “If Lindir is right, and many of our folk will choose to sail now, then at least he’d know that a few of us won’t cede Middle Earth to Sauron’s evil without a fight.”

“I will tell him that,” Lindir said, brightening a little. “He won’t be surprised, but even so, I like any chance to hearten him against the coming storm.”

We were resolved, so we went back to our supper preparations with lighter hearts.

So began our vigil – to watch, and wait, and hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The muse has not yet revealed what the real name of this story is, so when she does, you'll all be the second to know, lol! In the meantime, "The Orc Spawn Ride Again!" works just fine.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Kíli and Tauriel prove that they haven't lost their skills in the past 78 years, their children prove that they've inherited those skills wholesale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> Calion (“Son of the Light,” Quenya) born 1344 (age 75)  
> Alassë (“Merry,” Quenya) – born 1345 (age 74)  
> Nésamil = mother's sister (i.e., aunt; Quenya)  
> Mamil = mother (Quenya)  
> Atto = father (Quenya)  
> Tada = father (Khazudul)  
> amrâlimê = beloved (Kazudul)  
> a'maelamin = beloved (Quenya)  
> skator = hell (Black Speech)

“They’re up to something,” Alassë muttered, as she kneeled on the settee by the front window and stared out the front window.

“What did you say?” I called from the kitchen where I sliced apples for my favorite winter crumble.

“I _said_ , they’re up to something!” Alassë pitched her voice louder. When she looked back at me, her amber eyes narrowed as she considered the gathering around the central fountain.

Annalisseo sighed as she crumbled butter into the sugar and flour topping for the crumble. “ _Who’s_ up to something?”

“Mamil and Atto. Not just mine, either. Yours and Calion’s, too.”

I smothered a laugh. “They’re always up to something, Lassë, you know that. They wouldn’t be our parents if they weren’t up to something.”

“This is different,” Alassë said stubbornly. “ _Hánoamil_ Teth and _Hánoamil_ Lindir are with them. And _Nésamil_ Drennal is crying.”

In seconds, Annalisseo and I were beside our sister, linking arms as we peered out at the gathering. When we exchanged looks, Alassë folded her arms over her chest and nodded. “Told you.”

“So you did,” I agreed soberly, studying our parents. “This has to do with that council. The one they won’t tell us about.”

“It’s about the coming war,” Annalisseo murmured.

Alassë snorted, sounding just like her mother, _Nésamil_ Giriel. “How can it be about anything else? That’s all anyone’s talking about. That, and whether it’s safer to go across land to Mithlond, or brave the way south to Dol Amroth.”

“To Sail, you mean,” Annalisseo clarified.

“Course,” Alassë snorted again.

“Gently, Lassë,” I urged, when Annalisseo bit her lip.

“I’m sorry, Lissë.” Alassë’s voice was contrite as she gave Annalisseo a quick hug. “Everyone’s on edge, and I’m no different. I’m sorry to snipe.”

“I shouldn’t let the general despair affect me so,” Annalisseo hugged back.

“It’s hard for anyone to resist,” I agreed, patting my sister’s shoulder. “Much less our subtle scholar.”

“It must be worse for both of you, though,” Alassë blurted. She blushed a furious red very much at odds with her pale blond hair, and pressed both of her hands to her mouth as if belatedly trying to hold back her ill-advised words.

“Likely not,” I said calmly. “It’s all right, Alassë. Lissë and I were resigned years ago that we likely can’t Sail as you can. But even if we could, I wouldn’t. I love Imladris, and I can’t bear the thought of leaving it.”

“About that,” Annalisseo said slowly, drawing my eyes. Alassë was no less curious.

“ _What_ about that?” I asked. Despite the gravity of the moment, I couldn’t resist smiling at the familiar considered expression on my sister’s face.

“Let’s go back to the kitchen,” Annalisseo beckoned, “or we’ll never finish making supper.”

We cast a last look at our parents’ mournful gathering before filing back to the kitchen. I went back to my apples, Annalisseo to her crumble topping, and Alassë to the pan on the stove that waited for the half-gutted fish she’d left beside the sink.

“So what about _what_?” the impatient Alassë shot Annalisseo a look as she rinsed the trout clean.

“About whether we can Sail. I don’t think it’s all that clear whether we can, or can’t.”

“Oh?” I prompted, shooting Alassë a look that said, _be patient_. Trying to push our thoughtful sister to speak sooner than she was willing usually made her refuse to speak at all.

“Calion and I have been reading.”

“The two of you are always reading,” Alassë rolled her eyes. “You and Calion spend more time in Lord Elrond’s library than _Hánoamil_ Lindir does.”

“What attracted your attentions this time?” I slid my dish of apples to Annalisseo to cover with her topping. “Poetry for Calion, or histories for you?”

“We found out that Nandor Elves are a branch of the Teleri,” Annalisseo reported.

“What, the seafaring Elves?” Alassë looked up, her eyes sparkling in surprise. “The ones at Mithlond who build the ships? Ooh, that’s interesting! And –”

“And suggestive, yes, I agree,” Annalisseo agreed, surprising both of us when she dove straight to Alassë’s point. “Mamil is completely Nandor, so if that’s the same as Teleri, then maybe she’d be allowed to Sail, no matter all the back and forth about who saw the light of the Two Trees and who didn’t. Given that Tada is half Teleri, that means Míri and I are three-quarters Teleri, which might be enough to get us by, too.”

“That’s not just interesting – that’s fascinating!” Alassë exclaimed. “So you _could_ –”

“ _Maybe_ ,” I interrupted gently. “It means that _maybe_ Mamil, Lissë, Iz, Khel and I could Sail. But I don’t think Tada could. Only the immortal are allowed in Valinor, and Dwarves aren’t immortal.”

“That’s... not entirely clear, either,” Annalisseo inserted tentatively.

I put the crumble into the oven, but when I looked back at my youngest sister, my expression remained startled. “Valar, Lissë. You and Calion have been busy, indeed.”

“And what do you mean when you say that’s not entirely clear, either?” the impatient Alassë demanded. “Whether Dwarves are immortal, you mean?”

“We know the Eldar are immortal, yes,” Annalisseo conceded. “But Dwarves weren’t made by Eru – Aulë made them, and he didn’t make them the same way Eru made Elves. Everything Calion and I have found so far seems to say that while Dwarves aren’t immortal the way Elves are, they aren’t mortal the way Men are, either. It’s quite vague.”

Annalisseo gave the little sniff that was pure scholarly exasperation – nothing annoyed her more than ambiguity.

“Maybe all it means is that Dwarves live much longer than Men, but aren’t immortal as Elves are,” I mused.

Alassë blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes as she sprinkled her fish with seasonings. “No good way to find out, short of not dying for a long time, I’d say.”

“And let’s hope we all do that,” I replied, grinning when Annalisseo hummed agreement. “In any case, I don’t expect to Sail. I can’t bear the thought of abandoning Tada here alone.”

“We might not have to, anyway,” Annalisseo murmured. “If Tada’s not immortal... eventually he’ll die. Maybe he’d have to leave us before we leave him.”

This had always been a tender point with my youngest sister, so I wasn’t surprised when her pale sea-blue eyes filled and tears spilled silently down her freckled cheeks, revealing how deeply she adored our Tada.

I adored him, too, if with less idealism and more pragmatism than my sister. Unlike my sibs, I’d seen the earliest days of Tada’s duties as Imladris’s Ambassador of All Things Dwarvish. When he and Mamil had guided the restoration of the Old Forest Road through Mirkwood that sped the Dwarvish emigration from the Ered Luin to Erebor, I’d accompanied them. I’d seen huge, black spiders swarm under Mirkwood’s decaying trees. I called a skin-changing giant friend, as well as the Woodland Realm’s tall, pale, Sindar king. I’d survived savage Orc attacks on Dwarvish caravans, and witnessed equally savage Elvish counterattacks full of flying blades and arrows that had left no Orc alive. I’d also seen Tada knock heads when stubborn, ignorant Dwarvish émigrés mistakenly insulted Imladris Elves for the Mirkwood Elves’ perceived shortcomings seventy-eight years ago at Erebor.

In short, I knew that immortality was no guarantee of endless life, whether during times of peace or war.

How many creatures, immortal or not, would lose their lives in the coming fight?

Even if the Free Peoples prevailed against Sauron, those who lived would be changed forever, as would all of Middle Earth. Nothing would be as it was.

Pragmatic or not, I couldn’t bear to think about that. I resisted the pang in my heart to comfort my sister with a hug.

“Let’s not worry about that today, love,” I urged as Alassë quickly put her arms around us. “The matter at hand is what to do about whatever our parents are planning. That’s something well worth thinking about.”

“I’ll slip out to see if the lads know anything,” Alassë volunteered. “Be back in a moment.”

The maid ducked out the back way and headed for the home our brothers shared just two houses beyond. Before the door shut behind her, Annalisseo was wiping her eyes and looking determined.

“I’m sorry, Míri. Some days, that old ache still breaks my heart.”

 _Which is why you scour old, dusty books for obscure answers_. I stroked my sister’s bright red hair, a twin to our mother’s. “How you feel about Tada isn’t something to apologize for, love. And whether we know the details of that so-called secret council or not, we know it’s surely about the coming war, and that’s enough to sadden anyone. But we’ll see it through together, as we always do.”

“I know,” Annalisseo patted my calloused hand on her arm. “Warriors, all, we.”

“Even the ones who are also scholars and poets,” I grinned as the back door cracked open. At the sound of Khel’s gleeful laugh, I added, “as well as pranksters.”

“A good prankster is just what we need, sweet sister.” My youngest brother Khelberr, magnificent mane of chestnut hair flying and hazel eyes flashing, swept into the kitchen with an exuberant hug for both of us. Just behind him strode our middle brother, brown-haired Calion, Drennal and Fallon’s son, who winked at Annalisseo as he plunked a big basket down on the kitchen table. He threw his coat towards the hall bench, too eager to witness every moment of our stir to hang it up properly. Bringing up the rear was the shortest of us, my oldest brother, black-haired Izrilmagg, who hadn’t bothered to put a coat on over his tunic. He’d been doing something with rocks or metal or gems, or perhaps all three, given the blackened state of his hands and the leather apron still covering the front of his tunic. “Or so Alassë tells us?”

“She said the Orc Spawn are up to something,” Izril grunted, scarfing up a leftover slice of apple lying on the table.

“The _senior_ Orc Spawn are,” I agreed, giving Izril a pointed look. In reply, the lad looked just as pointedly at Calion’s basket.

“Which means the junior Orc Spawn soon will be,” Khel grinned, waving his hands to include everyone milling about the kitchen.

“Which is why we brought our contribution to supper,” Izril’s deep blue eyes twinkled as Calion produced a big pot of stew and a huge loaf of bread from his basket. “Lord Elrond isn’t the only one who can hold a secret council, is he?”

“I’ll lay on another fish,” Alassë chortled, snatching up her boning knife and giving it a twirl. “Scrub off the forge dust, Iz.”

“Toss me the fish,” Izril beckoned with a smile. “I’ll get us both clean at the same time.”

Alassë heaved the river trout over the table to her brother, then the knife; I bent smoothly out of the way both times without a blink, just as I had the last thousand times my sibs had chosen to toss sharp or messy objects at each other. While the sturdy Izril scrubbed and gutted, Calion and Annalisseo assembled salad, and Khel sliced the loaf. He ducked into the pantry, returned with cheese and butter, then helped me lay plates, bowls, and flatware around the table. Calion found the wine, Annalisseo brought glasses, and soon we crowded around the table. Despite the somber circumstances of our gathering, good food and youthful spirits prevailed, and our talk was as lively and animated as ever.

“So the upshot is that we _think_ our parents are up to something, and we _think_ it’s got to do with Lord Elrond’s secret council,” Calion summarized as I spooned the next-to-last bite of crumble on my plate. I passed the nearly empty dish on to Izril, whose sad expression perked up with gratitude as he eagerly claimed the last bite for himself.

“And we _think_ the secret council had something to do with the coming war, which means whatever our parents are up to does, too,” continued Annalisseo.

“Not much to go on,” Izril mumbled through his mouthful of crumble.

“For anyone else but us, maybe.” Khel snagged another piece of bread and bit off a mouthful to chew slowly. He waved the remnant at us for emphasis. “But we’ll ferret it out.”

“Quietly,” I urged. “This is the Orc Spawn we’re talking about, not a lot of sheltered flitterwits. Discretion is the order of the day. Especially for you, Lassë.”

That brought a round of laughter, even from Alassë. “I’ll do my best, Míri. But I can’t help being –”

“Just as impetuous as your Mamil!” everyone chorused, which brought still more laughter.

“The best thing to do is watch close,” Izril offered, as our laughter tailed off. “Look, this is a hunt, isn’t it? You’re a good hunter, Lassë, so just think of our parents as the most skittish of birds. We have to wait for them to settle into our net.”

“Tada is _not_ a bird,” I laughed. “He’s as fierce as a Warg. _Nésamil_ Giriel is worse.”

More laughter.

“Wargs, birds, or fierce Orc Spawn, they’re all good reasons for patience, just as Iz said,” Khel urged. “If everyone keeps a sharp lookout, we’ll soon sort it out.”

“Our parents aren’t the only ones we should watch,” I said, looking at Calion and Annalisseo. “ _Hánoamil_ Lindir’s part of this, and as sweet as he is, he’s not quite so elusive as our parents. Since both of you are in the library so often, no one will think anything of you wandering by more times than is exactly needed.”

Calion and Annalisseo traded secret smiles. If those two didn’t end up making some sort of arrangement within a hundred years or so, I would be most surprised...

If any of us survived this upcoming war.

* * *

When Tauriel and I sat down to our belated supper, both of us were quiet. Maybe we missed the stir and bustle that had been our norm when our four bairns had lived with us. But our youngest, Khel, had moved out to join his brothers some twenty years ago, so the more likely cause of our silence was the pall cast by this upcoming war. The city was rife with it, and I sympathized with the folk who planned to flee it. Still, losing one home after another was a curse that plagued all Dwarves, even those who’d lived so long in a magical Elvish enclave, and I wasn’t about to lose this one. Even if the very stones of Imladris burned, I’d be one of the last to leave her.

“You’re very quiet, _a’maelamin_ ,” Tauriel murmured, when she’d swallowed her mouthful of salad.

“Am I?” I let my exaggerated look of surprise wax into smug triumph. “Oh and oh, that proves that I’m right, doesn’t it?”

“Right about what, Kíli?” My beautiful wife’s quiet look of challenge was ageless – she looked no different now than she had when I’d first seen her sliding down a Mirkwood slope on the back of a huge dead spider, one she’d killed with the elegant knives she still wore at her side. I was the one who had changed. Grey now touched my Durin clan braid at my temple, and while I remained uncommonly tall for a Dwarf, I was skinny no longer, not that any of my folk would ever call me stocky.

“That after years of insisting that four boisterous bairns and an unruly dark Dwarf would deafen you, you’ve finally gotten used to the racket, haven’t you? Now you miss it when you aren’t in the middle of it! Just as I’ve said a thousand times, haven’t I?”

Tauriel’s smile was tolerant. “You have.”

“Shall I call the bairns over to give you a shout, then?”

Chuckling, Tauriel shook her head. “No need. You are quite capable of generating enough noise to crack the walls all by yourself.”

“All right, then,” I nodded as if that settled everything. I stabbed a bite of my chicken pie and chewed it busily, as if I weren’t preoccupied with anything. But my _amrâlimê_ knew me well, and offered an understanding smile.

“You still dwell on the Fellowship.”

I swallowed, then conceded with a shrug. “Who doesn’t? All right, let’s dwell on the Fellowship together. You’re too wise a captain of the guards not to think of what Lord Elrond might consider besides sending Lindir’s messages.”

Tauriel nodded. “I don’t presume to fathom all that Lord Elrond considers. I have enough considerations of my own to occupy me.”

“Meaning?” I pushed away my empty plate, folded my elbows down on the table, and gave my wife my full regard.

“Just this, Kíli.” Tauriel took my empty plate and moved it to the center of the table. “This is Mordor to the south. This,” Tauriel put the saltcellar just below and to the left of my plate, “is Lórien, home of Arwen’s grandmother, the Lady Galadriel.” She arranged her salad bowl, the cheese plate, and the cake plate above my empty plate. “Here is Mirkwood, Dale, and Erebor.” She slid her wine glass far left of my plate. "Here is Imladris." Finally, she moved the pepper pot hard against the leftmost edge of my plate. “And here is Gondor.”

I nodded.

“Gondor is the obvious front line. But the other realms of Elves, Men, and Dwarves are between Mordor and Imladris. If we are in danger here, it will be only when all these other havens fall.”

I nodded again.

“If all these other havens fall, then we will know it long before Sauron rallies his armies to march on us here. Lord Elrond will evacuate the city and flee west, aiming for Mithlond, or perhaps south, aiming for Dol Amroth, but I would guess Mithlond before Dol Amroth. So there is little point in holding the guard here for a protracted battle.”

“So maybe he’ll send the guard east?” I concluded.

Tauriel nodded. “That is what I would do. If we can cross the Misty Mountains in the depths of winter, then either Mirkwood or Lórien may be be our destination.”

“Which one would you choose?” I said, considering our map of scattered dishes.

“Mirkwood,” Tauriel said without hesitation.

“Why?”

“Because there is power in Lórien beyond all the rest of the Elvish kingdoms,” Tauriel replied, as her fingers came to rest on the saltcellar. “I don’t know what that power is. But Arwen has spoken of her grandmother several times. Something in the way she spoke makes me think that of all the Elvish kingdoms, that one is the most powerful. It is a power beyond armies and swords. So if the guard is to go anywhere, I say it will go to Mirkwood.”

My lips quirked up in a gleeful smile, albeit a small one. Tauriel caught it, and offered her own smile.

“What?”

“I was just wondering if I could offer Lindir odds on Lord Elrond doing exactly as you said. Do you think he’d take it?”

“No,” Tauriel shot back at once, chuckling. “He knows better than to take any bet of yours.”

I smothered a mischievous snort. “Yah, likely so.”

“Do you want to make the bet with me, then?” Tauriel said, eyes twinkling as she held our her hand for me to slap.

“ _Skator_ , no, maid,” I put my hands behind me at once. “If Lindir knows better than to bet against me, I know better than to bet against the best battle strategist in Imladris but for Lord Elrond himself.”

Tauriel leaned forward to press a swift but delicious kiss on my lips, then got up smiling to gather the scattered dishes. “For that sweet compliment, _a’maelamin_ , I’ll wash tonight. You make the tea and wipe.”

“Done.”

I helped my _amrâlimê_ carry everything to the sink, sneaking enough kisses that I was pleased to see her smile as if we had no worries for the next century.

But we did have worries, and no number of sweet kisses could stop those worries from consuming us before long.

In anticipation of what might come, I let my next kiss linger on Tauriel’s smiling lips.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel proves that her strategic skills are not limited to moving crockery about the dinner table. And has our favorite dark Dwarf learned a few things from his most-loved wife?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> ancalima hendi = the brightest of eyes (Elvish)  
> skator = hell (Orcish)  
> a’maelamin = beloved (Elvish)  
> amrâlimê = beloved (Dwarvish)

I might’ve impressed my sweet dark Dwarf when I deployed crockery over the dinner table as if it were a chessboard. But my wisdom had less to do with fathoming the plans of an evil Maiar, and more to do with scholarship and calculation.

My scholarship was thanks to Lord Elrond’s foresight, for he had endowed the Imladris library with a trove of rich histories gathered from lands across Middle Earth. Our city was a haven for many peoples, be they Elves, Dwarves, or Men. With such diverse visitors had come their stories, some already written down, and others transcribed during visits. However they were gathered, Imladris’s beautifully carved shelves offered wide knowledge to all who read them.

When Lord Elrond had granted Kíli and me sanctuary, my world had broadened as wide as the sky. Imladris was not so insular a kingdom as King Thranduil’s realm was, and after only a short time among its citizens, I realized that I knew little of the world beyond Mirkwood’s trees. So I had spent many hours eagerly reading all manner of things, stuffing my brain as well as opening my eyes.

My first focus had been on the battles Lord Elrond and his people had faced. I had long been the captain of King Thranduil’s guard, and I wanted to be a fit captain for Imladris, too. I would be fit only once I learned new strategies and techniques suitable to defend a city of water and air, rather than one secluded underground in great caverns.

The histories of battles had led me to the histories of people, and then to a far greater struggle that raged above Elves, Dwarves, and Men – how Sauron had come to corrupt and destroy so much. Here was the beginning of ring magic, which the Orc Spawn had glimpsed when we’d rid King Thranduil’s kingdom of Finlor and his evil baubles*. But Sauron’s efforts were much more malignant than the petty machinations of a sadistic alchemist. The corrupt Maiar had ruined dynasties, devastated cities, destroyed entire kingdoms.

Always he had begun the same way – with seduction rather than direct force. In public, he offered honeyed words and gifts that seemed too good to be true, while in secret he worked on his true purpose of total subjugation. Once he had perverted the powerful to his call and his armies had swelled, only then would he directly confront those wise enough to see past his blandishments. Only then would he seek to eradicate all resistance without mercy.

Seventy-six years ago, while the rest of Middle Earth looked towards Erebor and Smaug, the White Council – Lord Elrond, the wizards Saruman and Gandalf, and the Lady Galadriel – had driven the Necromancer from Dol Guldur. That had been the moment when Sauron had dispensed with seduction. He’d fled to Mordor, but not in retreat – behind the forbidding walls of the Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow, and the Ered Lithui, the Ash Mountains, he had been free to amass armies and materiel in secret.

Now Sauron was done with secrecy as well as seduction. His armies had started to move, so his direct confrontation would come soon.

What a gamble it was to send nine tiny souls in a forlorn attempt to thwart all of Sauron’s might and malice! Not only did those nine souls bear Sauron’s key talisman – one of them was Isildur’s Heir, the Dúnedain Ranger Estel, whom some called Aragorn, and others called Strider. If they attracted even the slightest notice, then doom would follow for us all.

I was not surprised when Lord Elrond called his captains of the guards together the very day after Kíli and I had talked over our supper dishes. Nor was I surprised when Lord Elrond gave voice to all I had surmised and calculated. I took no pleasure in having read the situation so well; matters were far too dire for self-congratulation. As I expected, many of the city’s folk were planning to retreat before the conflict went farther, but I was not so eager to leave without a fight. Maybe the gentler folk found it easy to leave their home for the promised haven of Valinor, but my guard comrades and I had fought and bled for our city time and time again, and would not relinquish it to evil so easily. Kíli and I might be relative newcomers, but we loved Imladris fiercely, and we would fight for our home until there was no home left. I was proud to learn that all of the Orc Spawn and most of the guard felt as I did.

Because Lord Elrond didn’t speak of the Fellowship in our council, neither did I. Ring magic was a dire force, and if our lord were unwilling to speak of it, I would follow his lead. But once the meeting was over, and most of the guard captains headed back to their duties, Fallin and I lingered, helping Lindir gather the scattered papers and props strewn about our council table. All of us knew about ring magic, if some only a little, so that emboldened me to speak.

“Lord Elrond,” I ventured, as I handed Lindir the pages I’d collected. “If I might ask...”

The lord of Imladris gave me a knowing smile. “Your centuries of service with King Thranduil have taught you discretion well, Tauriel, but I would have been disappointed if you had held your silence with me. What thoughts have you held back?”

My smile was unabashed as I nodded in appreciation of the compliment. “When you spoke to us, you held back all mention of the Fellowship.”

Lord Elrond’s face remained smiling yet impassive, but he didn’t have to look at Lindir for me to guess his train of thought.

“As I was sure you had good reason to do so, I held my own comments as you did. But Fallin and Lindir know of the Fellowship as I do, so I thought...”

When my voice faltered, Lord Elrond’s smile waxed rueful. “It seems that three Hobbits aren’t the only folk who managed to divine the plans of a secret council. Have the walls grown ears, then?”

“No one betrayed your confidence, my lord,” I replied. “Call it the discretion of the Orc Spawn, for all that it may appear that we racket louder than the waters of the Bruinen. Perhaps we do racket, but not about all things. None of us have ever spoken of the ring magic we strove to defeat in King Thranduil’s realm some few decades ago.”

Lord Elrond sighed deeply, and turned to stare out of the tall window behind the council table. Even in winter, the vista just beyond still entranced me, for there before us were the steep dell cleaved over eons by the rushing waters of the river, and the bare trunks of oaks, maples, beeches. The sky was pearly blue and white, veiling the sun’s rays into soft, dreamy gold, and all seemed peaceful and idyllic.

“I appreciate the Orc Spawn’s discretion,” Lord Elrond said simply, still staring out of the window. Then he turned his gaze on me, piercing me to the soul with the depths of his regard. “Yet now you break your silence. Why?”

“Because of the history of ring magic,” I said with more calm than I felt. “I don’t understand all of it, but I understand what it is that Frodo carries to Mordor. The Fellowship hopes to destroy the focus of Sauron’s evil.”

“Yes,” Lord Elrond nodded. After a long second, he grimaced, and looked away, shaking his head. “Destroying that evil is our only hope.”

“But a forlorn one,” Fallin murmured beside me.

“Yes,” Lord Elrond repeated.

“Then we must do all we can to safeguard that hope, no matter how forlorn,” I pressed on.

Unaccountably, Lord Elrond smiled, and his gaze was warm. “And now we come to what you wished to speak of.”

I nodded. “Sauron has prepared long for a direct confrontation. He will not expect us to try something so risky as the Fellowship. He will expect us to flee, or perhaps some few mad souls to muster our might as best we can, and nothing more. The guard will not be among those who flee. So would we not be wise to give him what he expects, so that he thinks only of what he knows, and not of what he doesn’t?”

Lindir’s eyes went back and forth between the lord and me, gauging us. Fallin studied us with no less interest, but his was a calmer aspect than Lindir’s. That was no surprise – Fallin and I were warriors, and the prospect of battle held less fear for us than it likely did for Lindir. That was no slight to our friend; not all courage took place on a battlefield, as he had proved many times.

Lord Elrond offered me a slight bow, which I returned in thanks for his compliment. “So what would you say was the purpose of today’s meeting?”

“To prepare the guard for what may come,” Fallin and I chorused promptly, which drew Lord Elrond’s laughter.

“Indeed,” he grinned. “And what do you think will come?”

What followed involved maneuvering of inkpots and pens rather than supper dishes, which Lindir met with distraction to see such disorder descend over the table he’d just tidied. He left the room with relief when Lord Elrond sent him after Master Oteriel, Imladris’s Master at Arms, and general of the guard. Oteriel brought a better map and markers to replace our scattered bits, and the discussion quickly turned into a debate of how best to deploy our forces. I made my case for a northern campaign alongside King Thranduil, and let Fallin and Oteriel debate the risks of a winter crossing over the Misty Mountains versus a southerly trek after the Fellowship and then east towards Lórien. The difficulty of the mountain crossing didn’t escape me, even given the serviceable route that countless caravans of emigrating Dwarves had trod a few decades ago. But following in the Fellowship’s footsteps, and possibly attracting attention to it, seemed less wise. To my mind, there was already too much in play to the south, but it remained for Lord Elrond, Oteriel, and Fallin, all my superiors, to agree.

If I were honest, the ultimate decision to campaign south or north made little difference to me. I would bear my blades and bow in support, regardless of the location. But as Fallin and I left Lord Elrond and his general to continue their discussion in private, something told me that I might yet see the Woodland Realm once more.

I would not have long to wait. Lord Elrond would soon decide, and the guard would ride out of Imladris before another week passed.

* * *

“What are we going to tell the bairns?” I asked, as I considered my collection of knives, swords, and bows hanging on their pegs in the front hall of our home.

Tauriel gave a most un-Elflike snort, drawing my laughter.

“Valar, maid,” I teased. “You’ve spent so much time around your dark Dwarf that you’re beginning to sound like him. Snorting like a recalcitrant boulder, you are.”

“And you’ve spent so much time around your fiery Elf maid that you speak Kahzuhl with a Quenyan accent. Lilting like a flittery leaf, you are.”

I grinned at my well-cherished wife as she sat on the hall bench, whetting one of her blades. I stilled her hand, and leaned forward to press an impulsive kiss on her lips. “Mahal bless that fire, maid. Every time I think I can’t love you more, that fire proves me wrong.”

“Oh, Kíli,” Tauriel sighed tenderly, leaning closer to return my kiss with her own. “Your _ancalima hendi_ snare me just as tightly. You are always the brightest joy in my life.”

I savored another kiss, and added a caress at Tauriel’s nape. “So we have proven once more that we’re still the giddiest pair of lovers in all of Imladris. But it doesn’t clarify what we’re going to tell the bairns.”

“I suspect all of them will have much to tell us before long,” Tauriel gently tugged on my clan braid before turning back to her whetstone. She honed one of the beautiful knives she’d brought with her from the Woodland Realm. “All of them, Calion and Alassë included, have been whispering and poking their curious noses into everything for days.”

I snickered briefly, then considered Tauriel’s casual-not casual words. “They have. It might be kinder to just tell them now what’s soon to happen.”

“Then all six of them will want to go with us, Kíli.” Tauriel’s tone might be calm, but she pressed her lips together and shook her head.

I shrugged. “Of course they will. This is their home, too. You don’t expect them to flee, or stay here and wring their hands, do you?”

“No.”

Tauriel’s hands paused over her honing for a long, long moment, then she set the whetstone aside. She looked so conflicted that I gave her my full attention.

“They’ve all been in the guard for decades, even Khel,” I said for reassurance. “You and I have both trained them hard, even harder than Oteriel and Fallin have. If they all don’t clamor to come with us, I’ll be surprised.”

“So will I.”

“They’re too old to stay behind if we tell them to. They’re not much younger than I was when I went with Uncle to Erebor.”

“Lissë and Khel are much younger than you were then, but that is a trifle,” Tauriel said with distraction. “The others aren’t, and so the two youngest will refuse to be left behind.”

“Yah, my cousin Gimli was furious when he couldn’t join the trek to Erebor,” I agreed, wincing. The howls that denial had raised still made me wince, though the lens of seventy-six years had given me a reason to be glad Gimli had stayed in Thorin’s Halls. Except for my mother, he was the only close kin who remained to me. I still ached when I thought of my brother lost to the Orcs at Ravenhill, and then my uncle soon after him. “What, you aren’t going to try to tell Lissë and Khel to stay behind, are you?”

“Khel would pretend to listen to me, only to magically appear just at the point where it would be too perilous to send him back,” Tauriel exhaled.

I ducked my head to hide my smile. Fíli and I had thought we were the princes of pranks, but Khel had managed to match us time and again. I’d never tell him, but I was proud of him for his expertise.

“I know you’re smiling,” Tauriel shot me a stare.

“So I am,” I admitted. “And so would you be, if you weren’t trying to act the sober one of the two of us. Just remember, maid, the first time I saw you, you were sailing down a hill atop a huge black spider.”

“A _dead_ , huge black spider,” Tauriel amended.

“Dead or not, it’s clear that you contributed to Khel’s expertise as much as I did.”

“I don’t know how either of us contributed to Lissë’s talents. She writes poetry.”

“So did Fíli, so it’s in my line, though I admit I have no idea how. But she’s fierce with a bow, so we both gave her that.”

“And Míriel has your knack with animals, especially horses, and Izril has your skill at the forge, and they’re both death with weapons, which is from us both,” Tauriel said with some exasperation.

“Lissë’s not just a poet; she’s as good a strategist as you are,” I offered quietly. “Or she will be on another hundred years or so. Calion’s just as studious, but he’s just as deadly with a blade, too. As for Alassë, she’s more Giriel than Giriel is. So all our bairns are bairns no more, and all are well skilled for whatever will come. So why are you so...?”

Tauriel was silent, so I sat beside her to wait her out.

“This war will change everything,” she said at last.

I exhaled. “War always does.”

“This one will change everything more than any war before. However it ends, the age of the Elves will be at an end.”

“You’re right.”

“What will become of Imladris, even if the Fellowship succeeds?”

I considered that. “Aye, that’s a question.”

Tauriel’s eyes met mine. “You know something.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“What? Good or bad?”

I thought about what I was about to say. “When we dealt with Finlor...”

Tauriel nodded. “The alchemist preying on King Thranduil’s court.”

“That diadem I made to attract him? It wasn’t just my miraculous skill with metal and gems that went into its making.”

“Oh?” Tauriel’s eyes sharpened.

“I promised to hold silence about this bit, and I have up until now. So you have to swear to hold silence, too, no matter what.”

“You sound very serious, _a’maelamin_.”

“I am, _amrâlimê_.”

“I suppose that if I were to ask you why, you’d say you couldn’t tell me unless I swore to hold silence about that, too.”

I grinned. “Yah, I’d say that.”

“All right,” Tauriel held out her hand, palm up. “I promise to hold silence about everything.”

I slapped her palm as the Dwarvish steppe clans do, and Tauriel slapped my palm to complete the pact.

“So what else added to the allure of your dreamflower diadem?” Tauriel pressed.

“Lord Elrond gave me a ring to hide in it.”

“A ring?!” Tauriel repeated in concern. “One like those that Finlor made?”

“I gathered that Finlor’s trinkets were trivialities compared to Lord Elrond’s,” I confessed. “And I know that Gandalf kept Finlor’s ring of invisibility. So there are likely several such things secreted here and there.”

“I wonder if that is part of the power that sustains Lórien?” Tauriel mused. She flicked me a sharp glance. “Why, after this long, do you tell me this?”

“Remember how all of Finlor’s trinkets were connected in some fashion? What if these other rings are connected, too? If Sauron’s ring is destroyed, then what happens to these other ones? Do they end up stronger, or weaker? Either way, they’ll likely be affected, and that means Imladris will likely be affected, too, because Lord Elrond’s got one. Who knows what we’ll come home to, even if the Free Peoples prevail?”

Tauriel looked away. “You give me even more reason to fear what comes.”

I sighed. “If Imladris fades...”

Tauriel nodded. “We might come home to nothing.”

“We’ve both survived losing our homes. We will again.”

“What refuge will remain to us if Imladris fails?”

I grinned. “The Dwarvish steppe clans still remain. Not even ten of their folk emigrated to Erebor, did they? That’s a good life, if a canvas roof instead of a wooden one doesn’t deter you. Giriel would love it.”

Tauriel looked more reconciled. “True. And as long as you’ve lived with Elves, so I could live with Dwarves who value the same things we do, if they’d have me. There may be no ring magic in the Woodland Realm to wax or wane, but I never want to live underground again.”

“ _Skator_ , no!” I chortled. “It must’ve taken me five years after I came off the grass before I felt easy under a wood and stone roof again, so I’m no more inclined to want to go to Erebor or the Woodland Kingdom than you are.”

“There are the Teleri folk at Mithlond. Your father’s folk.”

“That’s another possibility,” I agreed. “So see, maid? No matter what changes, we’ll make do.”

“We will.” Tauriel touched my cheek gently with her fingers, but her face spasmed in contrition a moment after.

“What?”

“Oh, Kíli; I forgot I had honing oil on my fingers, and I have given you the most fearsome streak.” Tauriel grabbed her polishing rag, found a clean corner, and dabbed it across my cheek.

Snickering, I took the rag from her and scrubbed my face. “No harm done, maid. ’T is but a moment’s work to sort out. Which is much, much less time than we’ll need to sort out our bairns once Lord Elrond makes his decision. When do you think that’ll be?”

“No later than tomorrow,” Tauriel replied. “Fallin and I will hear first with the rest of the captains, then the guard will be told.”

“And then the youngest of the Orc Spawn will prove they can racket just as loudly as the rest of us,” I grinned.

“We must rally with the rest of us so that we present a unified front.”

“We already know what the bairns will say, Tauriel – that they want to go. And we already know that we won’t refuse them. You and I have had other homes, but they’ve had only this one. I won’t deny them their right to defend it.”

“Calion and Annalisseo should stay behind to write the history of what is to come with Bilbo, and Khel should stay behind because being in the guard is still a game to him,” Tauriel shook her head. “But they won’t, and I know it.”

“I know it, too,” I said softly. “May the Valar watch over us all.”

We fell silent, and sat together on our hall bench amid the cluttered gear of our profession. I savored the quiet moment, for it wouldn’t last. In another day or so, the clutter would resolve into disciplined order, and the guard would be underway.

Our part in the coming war was nigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * For the full tale of the alchemist Finlor's predations, please see "The Dragon's Gold" here on AO3.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the junior Orc Spawn are heartily tired of all the talking, their elders do their best to temper their youthful enthusiasm with some hard truths. Will those truths sink in once Lord Elrond sets his plans in motion?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation Notes:
> 
> It's clear that Kíli's years in Imladris have not dampened his love of swearing in Orcish. In fact, Giriel seems just as fond of it, too. I bet he's passed on that love to his bairns as well :-). Those of you who have ridden with the Orc Spawn before will recognize his favorite epithets below.
> 
> skator = hell (Orcish)  
> dahaut = shit (Orcish)  
> kurvanog = fucking (Orcish)  
> guhl gullend = good luck (Khuzdul)

_Skator kurvanog_ , what a stir my family had gotten themselves into! While my fierce Elf maid fretted about our bairns three times as much as she usually did, our bairns muddled about trying to chase down what was brewing. They might think they looked innocuous and stealthy, but they were as obvious as a flight of Clan Regha’s fumbliest wolfhound pups trying to make sense of a turtle. How like those sweet dogs were our bairns, all eagerness and excitement and intelligence! Thinking of those wonderful dogs made watching my bairns all the harder – would the coming war devastate the Dwarvish steppe clans as much as the rest of Middle Earth?

Of course Khel thought his smiling, innocent eyes fooled me into thinking he didn’t hang onto every stray word, and of course Annalisseo and Calion thought their love of Lord Elrond’s library disguised how often they chatted up poor Lindir. Izril was usually impassive about many things, but now he was more so, which meant he was seriously mulling. Míriel had tamed her childish impetuosity into patience, but she didn’t realize that her expression exactly mirrored Tauriel’s when she was at her most calculating, which meant that Míriel calculated, too. As for Alassë, I didn’t see her at all, which spoke buckets. That maid had no more subtlety than Giriel did, and if she laid low, it was because her sibs didn’t want her to accidentally blabber their secrets to three sets of sires and dams.

Their excitement might’ve coaxed me to laugh, but what Tauriel had told me was too serious to laugh about. Besides, no matter how much fun it was to watch the second generation of Orc Spawn sniff around things they hadn’t been told, two things would ensue sooner rather than later. First, they’d attract the wrong kind of attention – Tauriel and Fallin were not ones to cross about matters of Imladris security, and Lord Elrond was worse; second, they’d distract themselves past attending to their duties with the guard.

As distractions from guard duties offered the most potential for ruin, that’s what I chose to address. Had the bairns thought I wouldn’t notice when they left early for weapons training three days running, yet lined up late for drill on those same three days? As I was one of the archery masters, I knew who came and went on my watch, and where the lingerers strayed.

Either they took counsel in the equipment room, or the stable.

I made it my business to check both, and there they were, huddling in one of the empty stalls of the stable, humming like a hive of bees. Lissë stood watch just outside, and would’ve alerted the others, but I gave her a look, and she moved aside meekly to let me by.

“The lot of you,” I said, planting myself squarely in the stall doorway with arms akimbo, “are about as subtle as a flock of jays.”

“We’re just talking about this afternoon’s archery drill,” Khel protested in injured tones, trotting out his most-obedient-son look.

“Don’t pitch _dahaut_ at me,” I snorted, skewering my youngest son with a sharp glance. “I may be shorter, and my ears may be less delicately pointed, but neither will let you talk over my head. You aren’t on the guard so you can use the stable as a headquarters for mischief, are you?”

“If someone would just tell us what’s going on, then we wouldn’t be reduced to trying to sort things out in a horse stall!” Alassë retorted with exasperation, and Khel murmured staunch support.

“What if there are reasons not to tell anyone what’s going on?” I shot back. “Even if there aren’t, what kind of warriors are you to neglect your duties because you think someone hasn’t told you something?”

“That’s harsh, Tada,” Lissë pouted.

“So is war,” I replied in my grimmest tone, which raised a clamor of _so it is war_ , and _when_ and _how_ and _why_ and _with whom_. I waved an emphatic hand to silence them. “And since war _is_ coming, all of you need to serve your duty to the best of your abilities. If you don’t,” I said, raising my voice when the clamor resumed, “then none of you will get to have anything to do with anything, will you? Because you haven’t shown you could stick to your duties in the best of times, much less the worst.”

That stifled the rest of the squeaks. I might’ve smiled at the utter abashed silence, but that would’ve ruined my point, so I trotted out my best imitation of Tauriel’s merciless captain’s glare to sweep the stall.

“All right, then. Off you go. Archery grounds, and _kurvanog_ quick.”

“When will you tell us?” Khel, of course, was the one who pressed, but the five faces beside his looked no less urgent.

“I have no idea,” I laughed. “I don’t know what there is to tell any more than you do, and neither do the rest of the Spawn. I suspect Lord Elrond knows, or will soon enough. When he does, he’ll look for those he can count on to perform as well as he does. So think about that, lads and lasses, and decide if you want him to think well of you, or not.”

I would have dearly loved to linger, just to hear what our feisty bairns would make of that, but that would’ve wasted a perfectly good exit, so I turned on my heel and strode away. Once I was safely aback my horse, riding out to oversee the day’s target practice, I let myself sigh.

I wasn’t any happier not knowing than my bairns were, and taking my own advice to mind my duty was as unsatisfactory to me as it was to them. But the passing years had taught me a small amount of patience, and my battle face was better than my bairns’, so I soldiered on with more silence and less fussing.

Still, waiting wore on me, and my thanks to the Valar were heartfelt when the waiting and rampant speculation ended the next day. I hope I presented a stoic mien as I stood with Tauriel, the other captains and drillmasters, and Master Oteriel just outside the armory. We stood before the rest of the guard assembled in ranks, and before us stood Lord Elrond. How Fíli would have laughed to see his little brother stand as impassively as a stone as Lord Elrond laid out all the things that Tauriel and I had already chewed! Despite my impatience, I paid keen attention to each word our lord spoke, not one of which hinted of the Fellowship or their task. That was to remain as shrouded in as much secrecy as could be found, which made sense. Lord Elrond said only that war with Sauron was upon us, and that we would do what we could to help the forces massing to oppose the evil Maiar.

Our lord was not an Elf to prolong his speeches – he was gracious as ever, and equally succinct. Still, today my eagerness to know our fate made me wish for less grace and more succinctness, but Lord Elrond would not be rushed. Gradually, he wound through his thises and thats to answer the most burning question of the day – would we go south to Lórien, or north to Mirkwood?

I trusted my fiery Elf maid’s cunning.

Apparently Lord Elrond did, too. As Tauriel had calculated, our path lay north, to bolster King Thranduil’s army. We would leave in three days, as soon as we amassed the supplies for the harsh mountain crossing.

While most of the guard bustled about the armory in preparation, I headed to the ravens’ cote built atop Imladris’s stable. Over seventy years ago, once Erebor’s reclamation had been well underway, we’d badly needed a way to speed discussion between our two cities of matters big and small. A flock of messenger ravens had offered the perfect solution, and so we’d built them a sturdy, comfortable roost. I often visited them, not because they were Clan Durin’s totem animal, but because they were intelligent and canny birds, and I enjoyed their company. They greeted me today with soft caws and excited flutters of wings, accepting my treats eagerly. A trio of the glossy black birds stood patiently as I attached Lord Elrond’s messages to their legs. As I released the three on their journey, I wished them well. With luck, the three birds would reach King Dain in Erebor in a matter of days, but that wouldn’t be the end of the chain. King Dain would send riders to King Thranduil to let him know our plans.

“ _Guhl gullend_ ,” I wished them, _good luck_ in Khuzdul. The words felt almost rusty in my mouth, so long had I spoken Quenya as a matter of course. Still, it felt right to wish the birds winging their way towards Durin’s folk well in their own tongue.

When Tauriel’s cool hand fell on my shoulder, I patted it in appreciation.

“So we’ll see Mirkwood again,” I murmured, as several of the birds hopped towards my wife in hopes of another treat.

“Sooner rather than later, I hope.” Tauriel bestowed her handful of dried meat bits among the birds with a deft hand. One or two of the youngest ravens were still prone to including fingers with their treats. “The Beornings’ land is rife with Orcs.”

“Mirkwood, or Gundebad?” I murmured back, as we left the ravens to their roosts. Down the stairs we went, back to the bustle swarming about the stable.

“Much too many of both, I fear,” Tauriel shook her head as Fallin and Giriel approached.

“Not alone,” Fallin said as soon as he was within earshot. “Mordor and Isengard have bred their own hordes of the foul beasts. But if we move quickly, we won’t see many of those, if any at all.”

“They’ll stay to the south,” Tauriel agreed.

“ _They_ won’t,” I grinned, for just behind Drennal and Rhiannel rushed all six of our bairns. Behind them laughed Tethrandil, if ruefully. We were long past the time of light-hearted humor, which was not what I felt no matter how playful the jostling mob looked.

“Supper in the round, our house,” Giriel said, taking us all in with her keen glance. “Not here.”

“Not here,” the rest of us agreed. And so Tauriel and Giriel faced down our fierce brood with adamant words, recalling them to decorum, which Alassë especially wanted no part of, nor did Khel. But Izril muttered a few choice words in Black Speech, which snapped his sibs into silence, though many a rebellious look glowered as they scattered to help with the packing.

They were not so obedient when we met for supper, not that I blamed them. They’d been put off and put off and put off, and they were well done with that. Did I hear a whisper of ghostly laughter from Fíli as his spirit considered the clamor?

“No, I won’t wait until after supper!” Alassë snorted not ten seconds after she clattered into Giriel and Rhiannel’s dining room bearing a huge basket of rolls. She plunked the basket down with much more force than necessary, then gave all of her elders a glare. “I’ve pounded dough for the past hour, and feel no more patient for it. So supper can wait until you tell us everything!”

“Lord Elrond words were for all of us, Alassë,” Rhiannel replied patiently. “You heard all that the rest of us did.”

“But he didn’t say everything, and you know what he didn’t say!” Alassë retorted, giving full rein to her frustration.

“Not that we can’t piece together some of it.” Calion came in with Lissë right behind him, both of them cradling bowls in their hands. “Starting with the four Hobbits who came here in a rush, and then left just as suddenly, in the company of Nésamil Tauriel’s friend, the Elvish prince, and Hánoatar Kíli’s cousin. Where are they going, and why?”

Fallin, Giriel, and I all started to speak, but Tauriel was the one who slashed her hands wide so sharply that a deafening silence fell. When Fallin deferred to my wife with a nod, she turned her icy regard on our bairns. Valar, all those centuries of watching King Thranduil had given her an uncanny ability to mimic his worst expression.

“None of you will say one word to anyone, not even to us, about the Hobbits and their attendants,” Tauriel growled. “ _Not one_. Do you want Sauron to win this war? Do you?”

Six sets of eyes traded glances, and six heads shook in negation.

“Tenacity and curiosity are worthy tactics, but the time for those is past. The moment is dire. You must trust Lord Elrond and your commanders in this. Your tactic now must be to follow orders. To the letter. Without hesitation. You will give your word to do this. If you cannot, then you will serve duty in Imladris, not with the guard heading north. Do you understand?”

By nature, Tauriel was more intense than I was, but I backed her wholeheartedly.

“This is war,” I said. “Not a training exercise. War. There is no guarantee that any of us will return. You need to understand, that, too.”

“ _Skator_ , yah,” Giriel muttered. “So answer your Nésamil Tauriel. After that, not another word about the hobbits to anyone.”

“Are we a diversion?” Izril asked quietly.

“In part,” Fallin chose to answer this one. “So consider the purpose of a diversion, all of you. It isn’t to call attention to what you divert attention from, is it?”

Izril nodded. “Then yes, I understand. You have my word.”

My oldest son offered me his palm, and I slapped it. The other five bairns swore after him, though there were many looks back and forth. But matters were resolved enough for us to get supper on, and as the various meat pies, salads, and rolls diminished, the serious air lightened. We even sang a song or two, though the mood wasn’t so festive that I got out my fiddle. Rather, everyone seemed to savor our humble supper as if it might be the last we shared for the foreseeable future.

It might be.

Izril bided his time until the rest of the bairns gathered around Tauriel at the other end of the dinner table to hear her familiar tales about the Woodland Realm, its ruler, and its denizens. Then he rose from his seat, took our goblets to refill them from the cask in the larder, and came back to sit beside me. I saluted him with my glass and had a deep swallow of the rich red vintage. Around our dinner table, we would’ve shared mugs of ale, but over the years, I’d gained a good appreciation for the Elves’ favorite winter beverage. Perhaps tonight was a time to appreciate such things beyond the usual, for the taste seemed particularly nuanced, the scent more aromatic. I savored it as I did the comfortable silence with my son. Izril was a practical lad with a steady head on his shoulders, and I was pleased that he’d inherited my sense of stone and metal.

He’d also inherited his mother’s reasoning, so when he leaned a hair closer to me, I expected him to speak as she’d taught him.

“Fully half the guard will go to support King Thranduil,” Izril mused. “No slight to those who will remain here, but, they will not be enough to stave off much if Imladris is attacked.”

“Why do you think that is?” I murmured back.

Izril rolled that around in his head. “Because if Imladris is attacked, it means that all of the Free Peoples between Mordor and here have fallen.”

“Exactly.”

“So the remaining guard will not defend the city, but act as a rear guard as the remaining folk in the city flee.”

“Right again.”

Izril hummed, though his expression never changed. “So those of us heading to Mirkwood fight for more than that shadowy realm.”

I smothered a grin in my wine glass. “Hmm. Lissë’s not the only bairn who’s become a wise strategist, is she?”

My son’s bright smile came and went in a flash. It gave me another pang, for in Izril’s expression lingered the shadow of my brother’s face.

In three days’ time, just as Lord Elrond had decreed, fully half of the Imladris guard rode out of our city gates at first light. That sounded impressive, but in truth, there were only a hundred of us. So many Elves had left Middle Earth that Lord Elrond no longer commanded armies of thousands. Still, we hundred were stout warriors, and would give good account of ourselves no matter our foes. Giriel and Rhiannel were to my left; ahead of us were Fallin, Tauriel, and Drennal. Only Lindir and Teth were not with us. Both were too valuable as Lord Elrond’s aides to travel with us, for if the worst catastrophe struck, they would be needed to organize Imladris’s retreat.

Farther back in the ranks rode our six bairns, though the presence of some had been hard won. Of course Alassë would follow her parents, for despite her impetuous nature, she was brilliant in a fight. Likewise, Izril and Míriel were equally skilled. The bookish Calion and Annalisseo, however, had steadfastly refused all attempts to keep them behind with Lindir and Teth to aid Lord Elrond’s logistical efforts.

“How do you expect us to calmly pen the history of this war while it happens all around us?” Calion had asked with brutal yet disarming honesty. “Better we fight with our swords now. If the Free Peoples prevail, then yes, Lissë and I will write of it. If the Free Peoples fall, whatever we write now will be wasted, for there will be no one left to read it.”

Khel, of course, should have remained to bolster Imladris’s remaining guards with his strength. But no one could muster reason enough to keep him behind, especially when Calion and Lissë had stood their ground, though I tried.

“Khel, listen to me. I’ll say this once –” I’d said.

“I’m going, Tada,” Khel had whuffed with Dwarven stubbornness, despite his Elvish appearance. “Everyone else is, and I am, too. How can you expect me to stay behind like a bairn?”

“Do you know you sound just as I did when Uncle Thorin told me that no, I would not, in fact, go with him to Erebor?” I’d countered.

Khel’s hazel eyes had bored into mine. “Bad example, Tada. You _went_ with Granduncle Thorin to Erebor.”

“I never got there, did I?” I’d riposted. “But that’s not my point.”

“Then what is?” Khel had snorted impatiently.

“I was a few years younger than you, Khel, but just as eager for adventure, I was. So was Fíli. Both of us were damned and determined to march to Erebor and reclaim it from a firedrake. We thought we were riding off on a noble quest, just as all the heroes in my favorite storybook had done – just as you think you’re about to do to fight for Imladris. But riding off at the start of a quest is the easy part –”

“The long hours in the saddle, the cold, the constant vigilance – you and every other member of the guard has drilled all of that into my head since my first day in training,” Khel exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if his head hurt. “I _know_ all those things.”

“You know _of_ those things, Khel. You don’t actually know them first hand. But that’s not the worst thing you will endure. Even the Valar can’t hold off the worst forever, the day when someone you know dies. It might be me; your mother; one of your sibs, aunties, uncles, friends; but whoever it is, one day soon, someone you know will die during this war. You won’t be the same after. It’ll be the moment when you truly grow up, when war isn’t a romantic quest anymore – it’s life and death. Even those who live though this war will be scarred forever.”

Khel had fallen silent as my words had sunk in, so I hadn’t told him that not a day went by that I didn’t think of Fíli. But even if I’d said so, it would’ve changed nothing – my son would fight beside the rest of his family. Even as I’d mourned the loss of my brother once more, and hoped that I wouldn’t soon mourn further loss, I hadn’t denied my son, and so he rode with his sibs. His expression was more somber than I had expected, so perhaps he considered my final exhortation with the gravity it deserved.

* * *

As the lines of guardsmen stretched behind me, I looked ahead to Master Oteriel leading us forward. Lord Elrond’s general had chosen to lead our ranks himself, rather than remain in Imladris. He had never met King Thranduil or the Elf who had replaced me as captain of the Mirkwood guard, but he had exchanged numerous letters and messages with both since Kíli and I had emigrated to Imladris. While our worthy commander had been reluctant to treat with Kíli and me at first, with Lord Elrond’s encouragement, he’d eventually warmed to us, even to embracing the different fighting techniques that Kíli and I had brought to Imladris. When Kíli and I had labored to smooth the way for the Blue Mountain Dwarves emigrating to Erebor, Oteriel had taken a keen interest in the path we’d struck over the Misty Mountains, across the Beornings’ lands, and then through Mirkwood via the long abandoned Old Forest Road. He’d worked with us to suggest the best way to protect those on the road, and had even ridden as escort for a caravan or two to familiarize himself with the hazards. So I was not surprised when Oteriel chose the first stretch of our Dwarvish road as our path over the Misty Mountains. Once we crossed those peaks, our path would depend upon what we learned from the Beornings, whose land lay east of the mountains and west of Mirkwood.

For the next several days, though, our lot was to pick our way over the narrow paths that wound around and through the Misty Mountains. Though several decades had passed since Kíli and I had escorted Dwarvish caravans over the peaks, the road had remained a well-traveled one, and was still in reasonable repair. We had less to worry about the road itself, and more about the weather. The air had been cold enough in Imladris, but was frigid among the peaks. The winds howled so harshly that we had to take care not to be blown off the narrowest paths. Still, the bitter weather had one benefit – if Elves found it extreme, our enemies found it worse. The Orcs who lurked south of us in the Dwarves’ abandoned Moria had no love for sunlight, and less for ice and snow. We saw no sight of them during our time among the peaks.

The roots of the mountains were home to more dark creatures than Orcs. Kíli had told me of his harrowing encounter with stone giants when Thorin Oakenshield’s company had tried to cross the mountains, and then Goblins. As thunderstorms were rare in the winter, I spent little time worrying about the giants. But Goblins were sly and sneaky creatures, even in the cold. They had also learned that attacking a well-armed troop of warriors, whether Elvish or Dwarvish, was unwise. Our forces were much larger than those that had typically guarded a caravan of emigrants, so a Goblin attack wasn’t likely while we were on the peaks. But would Goblins hold silence about such a force? I thought that unlikely. Come dark, a few unfortunate minions would surely skitter away from their stone nest to pass word of our passing to the first band of Orcs they found. Before long, all of the Orcs west of the mountains would know of us. We might face many a skirmish before we ever reached the trees of Mirkwood.

The danger of detection was such that Oteriel led us as fast as our horses could safely travel through the pockets of deep snow, or across ice-slicked rock faces. We traveled light, all of us bearing our weapons and personal items of the most common need; our packhorses were lightly loaded to help them remain nimble on the slopes. Still it took us two long weeks to pick our way across the slopes. I never went off my guard for the duration. A hundred armed soldiers is a formidable menace, but not when it was stretched across steep and treacherous slopes like the thinnest thread. If but a few Goblins had overcome their hatred of cold, we would have been sorely pressed to repel them. There were just so few places where we could muster any number of Elves in force! The same tight confines that had prevented the Dwarvish caravans from using even the narrowest of carts to transport their goods now would prevent us from fighting more than one or two fighters abreast. All we could do was move as silently and fast as possible.

The winds were both blessing and curse. They remained free of snow and most ice, but they were so treacherous that that they seemed sentient as well as capricious. How well did I remember past blizzards that had trapped us for days on these slopes? I was grateful that no such blizzard struck us now. Still, if we remained free to move forward, so did Goblin scouts who would carry word of our passing ahead of us. As we came within sight of the Beornings’ lands stretching ahead of us, there was apprehension mixed into our relief. We might well be met with an ambush as soon as our horses stepped from slope to grass.

Even knowing that, our folk were eager to reach that grass. It was a mark of our experience that we tempered our eagerness by first donning armor, honing blades, tightening saddle cinches. Even our youngest children resisted their first impulses to reach the grass first before taking up arms. They heeded the orders of their captains to prepare for a battle as calmly as did their elders.

We might ride away from the Misty Mountains into an ambush, but we would do so as a force ready to fight.

If enemies awaited us, we would do our best to ensure that they were the ones dealt a surprise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Orc Spawn and the rest of the Imladris contingent have made their way across the Misty Mountains to the edge of the Beornings' lands. Do marauding Orcs lie in wait as our friends leave the narrow mountain paths behind? Or does something more perilous lie ahead?

For once, my mischievous brother Khel didn’t resort to exaggerated eye rolls, dismissive shrugs, or deep sighs when word passed to prepare for battle. That suited me – our position poised on the skirts of the Misty Mountains was precarious enough without my brother’s cavalier distractions. We might be high enough over the stubbled grass that marked the edge of the Beornings’ lands to see anything that might lurk there, but that made us just as visible to the lurkers. I’d lost count of how often I’d ridden down to that grass with my parents and the caravans they escorted only to be swept into one rough engagement or another. I’d been a child then, and had not fought marauding Orcs beside Mamil and Tada, but I remembered sharp Elvish cries, rumbling Dwarvish curses, and guttural Orcish snarls, sounds that I fully expected to hear now. I didn’t need to waste my ears on Khel’s nonsense when an enemy might be so close.

To my relief, no croaking Orc signals rose over the stubble. We’d be able to leave the rocks behind us in safety –

Before Oteriel could lead us off the slopes, a dark, shaggy shape loomed to either side of us. How had they magicked themselves within arm’s length of us without the least sound? Still, before my heart beat again, the guard had arrows nocked and leveled on the intruders–

As the two shaggy beasts rose on their hind legs, Mamil and Tada’s voices rang out, calling out for us to put up our bows. I hardly believed my eyes when the furry beasts seemed to melt, morphing from bears to Men –

They were not intruders.

They were Beornings, and this swath of land west of the Misty Mountains belonged to them. If anyone was an intruder, I was, and so was everyone in our party.

“Hold, hold!” Kíli barked, rushing to put himself in front of the Beorning closest to him. “They’re allies, not foes! Hold!”

Allies, true, but eldritch ones. Both were taller than anyone in our party, and well muscled. The male beside Tada was fierce enough, for all that he was naked but for the sheathed knife that dangled from a cord around his neck. His dark amber, deep-set eyes glowered from under shaggy black brows and stiff, spiky hair of the same color. That dark hair grew down his spine a bit like my Tada’s did, but the Beorning’s was much longer and covered more of his dark, weathered skin. But if wildness glimmered in his eyes, it positively radiated from those of his companion. She, too, bore a similar knife as her only clothing, and was as unconcerned about her nakedness as any wild creature. She, however, was the more unnerving, because her eyes were a lighter amber that seemed to glow, and she wore a Man’s skin as if it were unfamiliar and uncomfortable, as if she preferred being the bear she’d been a moment ago. Her fierce gaze skittered over us as if she considered where to ply her claws first.

I would not want to be the creature to anger her. It would be precarious enough to treat with her as an ally.

“You are Kíli, whom my grandfather often spoke of,” the male gruffed in slow, measured words, as if unused to our tongue.

“I am,” Kíli nodded at once. “My comrades are Elves from Imladris, or Rivendell as you call it. We ask your permission to cross your lands, for we are bound to Mirkwood on an urgent matter. This is Master Oteriel, the leader of our force.”

“You are expected,” the male nodded. “I am Darkbeorn, and that is Direbeorn, my sister. Our father is Grimbeorn, son of the Beorn you knew. My father is now master of our lands.”

“Well met,” Oteriel bowed to both emissaries. “I expect that you are the reason why we have not met with Orcs as soon as we set foot out of the mountains. We thank you.”

Direbeorn’s white teeth flashed as she grinned suddenly. “We guard our lands closely, Elf Master. No Orc may taint them with so much as a footprint. Neither do we suffer Goblins, as those who laid in wait for your messengers found.”

She nodded towards a spike some distance off our path. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it was a grisly warning to all trespassers. A pair of heads was nearly picked clean of flesh, but the shape of the bones revealed that both had once set atop Goblin shoulders. Direbeorn smiled again, a most disconcerting expression that left me not knowing whether to look away or not. I didn’t wonder for long, as the two Beornings bade us follow them at speed. Tonight we would camp out in the open, but tomorrow Grimbeorn would shelter us in the huge, carved fortress I remembered from my childhood. Did its stables, huge beehives, and fields full of living things still thrive?

With Darkbeorn to watch over us, we descended at once to the flat, where we stowed our weapons and retightened our horses’ girths. Direbeorn, however, wasn’t content to survey all of us; she strode through my busy companions to face me, staring into my eyes with sharp consideration. As soon as my sibs realized Direbeorn’s interest, they were beside me in a heartbeat, which unsettled Direbeorn not at all.

“You are Míriel.”

I nodded. “I am.”

“Ah.” Direbeorn nodded to herself. “You have the look of your father, the Dwarf Kíli. He was a fine friend of my grandfather.”

“My father was just as fond of your grandfather,” I agreed. “He still speaks of how much he enjoyed chopping wood with Beorn.”

That unsettling smile flashed again. “My grandfather spoke often of Kíli’s daughter Míriel, the fierce babe who was not afraid of anything. You have grown tall. I wanted to meet you for myself.”

“I am glad to meet you, and so are my brothers and sisters.” I named them quickly, aware that around us folk hurried aback their horses. “But I think your grandfather must have spoken often of his fierce granddaughter, yes?”

Direbeorn’s laugh was pleased. “Almost I regret that we will not face a band of Orcs today, Míriel, daughter of Kíli. It would be good to fight beside you, to see which of us is the fiercest.”

“I think Mamil is fiercer than I,” I grinned, and my sibs chuckled in agreement.

“Ah, the Elf Tauriel,” Direbeorn nodded. “My grandfather spoke often of her, too. But if we cannot fight together, perhaps we can trade stories at supper tomorrow.”

“It would be my pleasure. It will be good to see your family’s house again. I remember it fondly.”

Our escort gave me a quick, jerky nod, as if my words had satisfied her. She darted away, threading between horses and Elves to stand with her brother and Master Oteriel. At the latter’s word, we urged our horses to their fastest pace. Darkbeorn remained in Man form, and kept easy pace beside our leader, but Direbeorn dropped to all fours, already flowing back to her bear form. She raced ahead; as we rode, I spotted her ranging this way and that, sweeping the path ahead.

“She’s a perilous one.” Izril’s gaze followed our eerie escort as we rode. “Is she typical of the Beornings?”

“I can’t say,” I admitted. “Her grandfather is the only one I met. Beorn said that most of his kin stayed farther north, that he was the only one who remained so far south.”

“Solitary, then?” Lissë wondered.

“He had many friends about him – horses, bees, birds, sheep, the wild creatures,” I recalled. “Friendly enough to Elves. He didn’t like Dwarves other than Tada. And he was Middle Earth’s worst enemy to Orcs and Goblins. Be on your best behavior, I warn you. As Beorn wasn’t one to annoy, I can’t imagine the rest of his kin are, either. And don’t expect meat of any kind to grace a Beorning’s table. Honey, milk, cream, and cheese there will be in plenty, and fruits and vegetables, but no flesh. That’d be tantamount to eating their kin. Don’t even think about hunting anything but Orcs or Goblins on their lands.”

My sibs all exchanged looks at my words, even Khel. He considered Darkbeorn with a long look, and didn’t jest. Neither did Alassë voice anything blunt or rash. Calion and Annalisseo murmured as they rode, but quietly, so as not to be overheard. For the moment, then, my sibs wisely embraced circumspection.

When my parents had traced their path for emigrating Dwarves, they’d placed it as far south of the Beornings’ lands as possible. Even if they were in the wrong, Dwarves could be prickly folk when others accosted them. So Mamil and Tada had deemed it best to minimize the time the émigrés traveled from the mountains to the road through Mirkwood. Consequently, we were almost fifty miles southwest of Beorn’s house. Even on Elvish horses, it was not a distance we would cover before nightfall. We were perhaps halfway when dusk loomed. The land was too rough for us to risk our horses by traveling overnight, so we pitched our tents under cover of the bare trees. We lit no fires; cold rations would continue to sustain us until we reached the Carrock and the Beornings’ house farther on. We set a heavy guard, but a pair of shadows also prowled around our encampment, some small distance beyond our patrols. Nothing disturbed us during the night, which spoke well of our hosts’ stewardship of their lands. But given our hosts’ ceaseless watch, wary diligence surely made up a large part of their stewardship, and we should match their diligence with our own.

Darkbeorn urged us back to our journey before the pale winter sun rose the next morning, but no one complained. Though my sibs and I had huddled close under shared blankets during the night, we had not been comfortable – we’d remained fully armored, with weapons near to hand. Even under the trees, I’d felt exposed, and the cold was no friend to Elves; I was eager to move on. At least Iz, Lissë, Khel, and I didn’t require sleep as Tada did; all of us had inherited Mamil’s ability to draw repose from the light of the stars, so we’d awakened reasonably refreshed. Tada had wrapped himself in blankets and propped himself against a saddle frame. Maybe his affinity for stone let him ignore uneven, rocky ground, for he’d seemed to rest well. Breakfast was nothing to linger over, merely quick bites of journey bread and cold water. We were eager to saddle our horses, tighten our belts, and follow Darkbeorn and Direbeorn.

Our progress was rapid over a near-silent land. All I heard was the wind slipping through stubbled grass or bare tree branches, but every now and again I noted a guttural whuff or growl. Our two guides weren’t the only two of their folk nearby, then. While I didn’t see them, those low, barely heard sounds revealed that scouts were abroad, keeping watch. I wasn’t the only one to notice; Tada dropped back to tell us to put away the arrows we usually kept nocked on our bowstrings, as it would not be good form to accidentally shoot one of our escorts.

“It’s unsettling being in the middle of folk you can’t see,” Alassë muttered as she replaced her arrow in her quiver.

“Be glad they’re allies,” _Nésatar_ Rhiannel gave us a small smile.

“Be glad you aren’t an Orc, either, just an Orc Spawn,” _Nésamil_ Giriel added with a perverse grin. “Otherwise, a glimpse of our allies would likely be the last thing you’d see.”

My sibs took their duties just as seriously as I did mine, but who could resist a surreptitious grin at _Nésamil_ Giriel’s usual blunt humor? Alassë even smothered a chuckle. Tada claimed that _Nésamil_ Giriel was more Dwarf than Elf in her forceful approach to life, and given all the emigrating Dwarves I’d met, I thought he was right.

We passed the Carrock, the tall stone spire where Beorn had been wont to keep watch, near midday. It was hard to imagine that the towering, glowering giant who had been my friend would no longer sit atop his lofty perch to survey all that moved below. Word had come some forty years past of his death, at which time his son Grimbeorn and his wife Huldë had moved south to make Beorn’s rustic carved house their own. They had restored the ford at the foot of the Carrock, which was to our benefit today; the crossing stones were slick with ice, but with care we kept out of the water. Our crossing was swift, and we left the Carrock behind at our best speed. In another hour, we galloped up to great wooden gates set in an impenetrable wall of briars. Behind this formidable barrier lay Beorn’s house, outbuildings, and gardens.

Of my sibs, Lissë and Khel had never seen the Beornings’ lands. Izril had visited once, but as a babe, so he remembered little. Calion and Alassë had visited several times apiece, though not as often as I had. Our visits here had always been on the return leg of our caravan duties, when more times than not Beorn had come upon us not long after we emerged from under the Mirkwood trees. Our giant friend had preferred his own company, but he and Tada had had some sort of understanding that made them savor their time together, especially while chopping wood. Mamil loved the gardens, and I loved Beorn’s huge black bees. I hadn’t seen this place for fifty years, but I hoped that Beorn’s son and his family had kept up the gardens and the skeps to honor their patriarch.

Once Darkbeorn pushed the gates wide, I rode in with my companions feeling as if I were once again the very young child who had gleefully shrieked while running up and down Beorn’s neat rows of cabbages and squashes. The gardens looked unchanged, and some little way beyond Beorn’s house beckoned as it always had. But not everything was as I remembered; my tall, grizzled friend was nowhere to be found, and instead several Beornings roamed the garden as well as the fields farther on. Still, I was grateful to see this peaceful place again.

“Valar,” Izril murmured, looking all around himself. “I thought I’d imagined this place or dreamed it, but I hadn’t. It’s just as I remembered.”

“How could you remember?” Alassë demanded. “You were all of two or three when you came here!”

“If I’d seen such a place as this, even at that age, I wouldn’t forget it, either,” Annalisseo said, looking about in awe. “Even in the dead of winter, this place is magical.”

Calion hummed agreement; he likely savored his own memories of Beorn’s home.

“I thought you couldn’t have possibly told the truth about this, Míri,” Khel admitted without rancor. “How could anyplace outside of an Elvish land look like this? But it does.”

“Yes, it does,” Alassë nodded firmly, but with more reverence than force. Even the bluntest Elf of Imladris recognized a sanctuary when she saw it.

Darkbeorn led us forward; behind us, Direbeorn morphed to her Man’s form to lock the gates behind us. She ran ahead on light feet, seemingly still full of energy despite our rapid pace of the past two days, and what had likely been a sleepless night. By the time Darkbeorn had shown us to the field where we could pitch our tents, others of his folk were drawing near to welcome us. As Master Oteriel and his captains exchanged greetings with them, the rest of us set about making our camp. Our mood was easier by far than it had been last night, and with good reason. Tonight we would sleep without worry of prowling Orcs, and golden fire would warm and cheer us.

I snuck a glance at the gathering of our leaders and our hosts. Did the Beornings have news of events in the east?

I hoped it was good news.

* * *

Oh and oh, how good was it to ride through Beorn’s massive wooden gates again? The briar hedge that circled the haven inside was just as formidable as I recalled, and the wide space worked into massive yet tidy gardens was still just as beautiful no matter that winter was full upon the land. For a moment, I was the young Dwarf who had raced through these gates behind the Grey Wizard with my brother, my uncle, a Hobbit, and nine of my kin. If I just turned around, surely I’d see Fíli panting behind me. If I turned the other way, I’d see an immense bear burst through that grove of trees, lunging after us as we fled to the safety of the great house before us. Or perhaps I’d see Beorn in his gentler aspect, locking the gates behind us as we arrived for a visit, already reaching to take Míriel in his great hands to lift her high overhead just to hear my babe’s laughter pour over him like water...

The moment passed, and Uncle’s collection of followers faded to memories. Even my brother’s spirit dimmed as so many armed Elves paced to and fro. Míriel was no longer a babe, but a tall, strong, assured Elf maid who took charge of the junior Orc Spawn to get our tents set up. Only Tauriel looked unchanged as she surveyed the sanctuary we hadn’t seen in six decades. She turned towards me, smiling when our eyes met. She, too, recalled our previous visits here. Her memories were fond ones, because she relaxed an edge of the wary regard she’d evinced since we’d left Imladris.

“We have leave to camp where we used to,” Tauriel told me as I led my horse towards her. “We’ll settle our folk while the Beornings prepare us a hot supper. I’ve passed the word about the meat, but it won’t hurt to repeat it to make sure everyone knows. I don’t want to spend the night outside the barriers.”

“Nor I,” I agreed, and so we separated to see that tents were set up and hearths lit. Given that I was used to overseeing Dwarves as they made camp, tending to a hundred Elves was easy duty, without the racket that was typical of my rambunctious kin. Our silken tents rose without trouble, and hot tea went around to all who wanted it. Most of our company laid aside armor and weapons, and muffled themselves in voluminous cloaks. Several walked up and down the rows of the sleeping garden; several more ventured to the orchard or the wildflower meadow to take their ease. When I caught up to Tauriel, I couldn’t resist pointing to a certain tree at the edge of the meadow.

“Do you remember –”

“I do,” Tauriel grinned. “It was warmer the first time we dallied there.”

“It was warmer the last time, too,” I grinned back. “I don’t think we’ll improve on that today.”

“Sadly true,” Tauriel gave me an impish smile. “It would be like coupling with an icicle, even with my warmest of Dwarves.”

I snorted laughter. “Valar, maid, I’d cry insult, except you speak more truth about the depths of winter than the warmth of my cock.”

“Also sadly true,” Tauriel sighed softly. “I’m sorry that spring is so far off.”

“The sacrifices of a winter campaign,” I agreed. “Let’s hope our timing is better the next time we’re here.”

Tauriel met my eyes with another smile, but it was as much hopeful as worried. Would the war with Sauron run so long that we’d come back here only to another winter? Would any of us live to come back? Or would the war sweep even this stalwart place away with all who loved it?

Valar, every part of this journey was tinged with bittersweet.

“Grimbeorn is out with many of his scouts, but he’s expected back soon,” Tauriel said, slipping her long, slender hand in my broader one. “You and I are the ones the Beornings know best, so we’ll be with Master Oteriel when he talks to Grimbeorn.”

“I’d welcome another look inside Beorn’s house,” I replied. “For myself, of course, but I want our bairns to know that I didn’t exaggerate a single tale about his magnificent carvings. And I wonder if his family kept the chess set I gave him?”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Tauriel nodded towards the great gates. Beorn’s son, Grimbeorn, had just let himself inside. “Come.”

I hastened beside my Elf maid to greet the Beornings’ patriarch. Master Oteriel angled his steps towards us, so the three of us offered respectful bows together when we met our host. Grimbeorn had much of his father’s sternness, but his hair was dark brown rather than grizzled grey. His eyes were a pale, pale blue rather than the hazel of his father’s, but they assessed us with equal consideration.

“I am glad to see you have arrived safely,” he said to acknowledge our introductions. His smile came and went swiftly, but it was unforced. “Come, let us warm ourselves inside with good food and warm words.”

Tauriel and I fell in behind Master Oteriel. Around the grounds surrounding the great house, Grimbeorn’s kin beckoned to our company to follow us. Given that Elves aren’t rowdy folk, even a hundred of them would be no trouble around the table. Indeed, though Tauriel, Oteriel, and I took places atop the massive stools that ringed the dinner table, most of our company was content to help themselves to the bounty that spilled from a great collection of bowls, platters, and baskets, then find niches for themselves either in the attached stable, around the room, or outside. Khel wormed his way to my side, his eyes bright with wonder, and I slid over to make room for him to sit with me. Míriel joined Tauriel, but Izril preferred to perch on a stool in the corner beside Beorn’s massive chessboard – Valar, the chess set the Dwarves had carved for me still set on the board! Lissë and Calion nibbled buns with honey as they admired the many carvings that graced nearly every wood surface. A few new ones had appeared in a looser, more impressionistic style, but Beorn’s work still predominated. Alassë chose to join Izril, and they soon had the chessboard in play as they ate. As for the rest of our company, a quiet murmur underlay the conversation that went around the table, one far quieter than a trio of Dwarves would’ve stirred.

“Orcs have swarmed around the edges of Mirkwood,” Grimbeorn said without preamble once all who sat at the table had helped themselves to food. “I don’t think it was to meet your company, for we saw your ravens safely on their way when they paused here two weeks ago. They were strong and swift fliers, and to most Orcs, who do not see well against the brightness of the sun and sky, they would have looked like large carrion crows. We see those occasionally. They fly up from the south, perhaps from Isengard, always intent on some mischief. Nor do I think that Goblins passed word to the Orcs of your coming. They do not like the sun or the cold, and we keep watch on their bolt holes. When any appear, we see that they rue it. No, the Orcs are abroad in great numbers for their own reasons. What can you tell me of this?”

Master Oteriel sketched out all we knew of the coming war, again without mention of the Fellowship or its desperate charge. Grimbeorn listened impassively, though his kin about the room whispered among themselves.

“That would explain much,” the patriarch nodded. “For the Orcs we have seen are not merely Mirkwood’s bane. Many from Mount Gundebad are with them, often in positions of command.”

At mention of Mount Gundebad, resentment turned the taste of my food bitter. My forebear, Durin the Deathless, had been born in the roots of that peak, and to think of it overrun with Orcs never failed to stir me. How I wished to be a powerful wizard just long enough to smite every malevolent Orc in the place!

“Occasionally we see one or two that must come from other places.” Grimbeorn continued. “They are larger than the Mirkwood Orcs, of a size of the Mount Gundebad Orcs, but their trappings and weaponry are different.”

“Perhaps Dol Guldur,” Tauriel ventured. “Before Sauron took Mordor as his stronghold, he lurked in a ruined fortress in the very southernmost tip of Mirkwood. He likely left commanders behind to continue to build a secret fighting force.”

“I think that must be so,” Grimbeorn nodded. “We do not often hear word from the Elves of Lothlórien, but what little we hear is a tale of a land that may soon be under siege. I would not suggest that you travel that way.”

“Our journey takes us north and east,” Oteriel explained. “We go to bolster the King Thranduil’s forces. As Lórien’s fortunes go, we expect that Mirkwood will soon suffer its own siege. It would speed our way greatly if you’d grant us leave to cross your lands.”

“You have my leave,” the giant replied without hesitation. “My kin and I will offer escort as well. How Lórien fares may not be of immediate concern to my lands, but Mirkwood is a different matter. I have told the pale king that my folk will fight beside him should it come to that. I am glad that Lord Elrond has offered his support as well.”

Grimbeorn’s steadfast resolve to aid the Free Peoples against Sauron was heartening, and returned the savor to my meal. I left Tauriel with the other captains to continue their discussion, and slipped from my stool. I was surprised that Khel didn’t follow me, but if he wanted to soak up the concerns of our leaders, that was all to the good. I eased through the quiet throng of tall Elves and taller Beornings to reach the corner that sheltered Izril and Alassë.

“Is this the chess set you presented to Beorn when you hoped to make your treaty?” Izril queried, turning one of the pawns in his fingers.

“It is,” I grinned, taking the bee skep from him. “Three or four of your grandmother’s warriors carved them for me, and nicely done the lot of them.”

“All the carvings you told us about, they’re just as vivid as you described them.” Alassë looked around us, and her voice was soft with awe.

“So they are,” I nodded. “I’ve spotted a couple of new ones, but most of the house looks no different than it did the last time I saw it.”

“It’s beautiful,” Alassë sighed. “I never thought I’d ever see anything as beautiful as Imladris, but...”

“So you think the great carved house of a skin changer is more beautiful than Imladris?” Izril teased, but gently.

“More beautiful?” Alassë rolled that around in her head with atypical thoughtfulness. “No, more beautiful isn’t how I’d describe it, Iz. You can’t truly compare here with Imladris, because they’re too different. Imladris is a place of light and air and water. This is smaller, more secretive – wilder, yet more domestic at the same time. It’s firelight rather than sunlight – both of those are beautiful, but in different ways. Imladris looks most beautiful in spring. I imagine this place looks most beautiful in fall, during the harvest.”

Oh and oh, perhaps our rash Elfling did occasionally stop whirling with mad abandon to consider the world around her! I agreed with her sentiments too much to tease her about them. Even though I would never meet my great friend Beorn here again, it was still a place I loved, full of balm and hope. The coming war made such a place even more precious, and its survival more precarious. Whenever the conflict came, regardless if I fought with King Thranduil’s forces or not, my blows would fall on our enemies to preserve this place as well as the others I held dear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a brief respite with the Beornings, Kíli, Tauriel, the Orc Spawn, and the rest of the Imladris Guard head towards Mirkwood.

Kíli was not the only one of our company pleased to reach Beorn’s house at last. Kíli, Míriel, and I were glad to revisit this hidden haven, of course; the rest of our Elvish company, however, likely savored the warmth of the great fireplace even more than Kíli did. The Eldar might be blessed with immortality, but as Men and Dwarves burned with more heat, they felt the cold less. What Elf wouldn’t be eager to bask in the deep warmth radiating from a stone fireplace as wide as this one? Strong hot tea and milk and steaming mounds of roasted vegetables further helped to ease the chill of Elvish bones. Few of us would willingly leave this warmth tonight, but those who did were given coals to kindle hearth fires in their tents.

I would likely not leave the house, except to see Kíli snugged into his furs in our tent. No matter how eager my husband was to talk to our hosts, he had to rest. Once we left the Beornings’ land, we would race northwest as fast as our horses would bear us, hoping to reach King Thranduil’s halls before marauding Orcs, be they from Mirkwood, Mount Gundebad, Dol Guldur, or Mordor, discovered us. There would be little rest for anyone, so it behooved all of us to take what rest we could here.

As was my habit, I accompanied my dark Dwarf to our tent, urging him into his furs while I saw to our hearth. Despite the grim nature of our mission, we cuddled by the fire to whisper together as long-wedded folk are wont to do. After seventy-eight years together, we knew our hearts well without words, but neither of us tired of saying them. Words led to kisses, and kisses to caresses, and so we made the most of the rare privacy to journey blissfully over the moon together. It was a brief indulgence, as even Kíli’s Dwarvish heat and our hearth fire couldn’t hold off the cold for long – no, it wasn’t an indulgence. It was an act of defiance, of hope against the coming war, that we would endure the turmoil and return home in peace.

Kíli smothered a giggle. “Valar, maid! It’s Elvish lust for heat. You needed me to warm you from the inside as well as the outside.”

I poked my chortling Dwarf in the ribs with a sharp finger, making him flinch. “And did you get nothing out of our coupling, silly Dwarf?”

I poked him again, grinning as Kíli’s spasms made our furs and blankets flap like linens on a summer drying line.

“ _Skator kurvanog_ , you imp!” Kíli spat, torn between laughing and trying to grab my offending digit. “Stop it, before we lose all the heat we generated!”

“It’s not me letting out the heat; it’s you. If you keep flapping, we’ll have to couple again, and –”

I didn’t need to finish my sentence before my husband suited actions to words, and in another few moments, we were nicely warm again.

After such delicious exertions, Kíli soon dropped off. Once he was well asleep, I dressed quietly, tucked another fur or two atop my smiling Dwarf, and ducked out of the tent. I was well muffled in a fur tunic and gloves as well as a heavy wool, fur-lined cloak, so I lingered between the tidy rows of the garden, restoring myself in the starlight. But before long I made my way back to the Beornings’ carved house and the warm fire within.

Despite the late hour and the day’s long journey, many of the Beornings were still among the Imladris folk, talking lowly but with more animation than I would’ve expected given Beorn’s taciturn nature. Maybe there was little contact between our hosts and the Mirkwood Elves, or maybe the contrast between those folk and ours drew their interest. I poured myself a welcome cup of fragrant herb tea and lingered in front of the fire to listen to the soft whispers of conversation. Ah, there were Izril and Khel, mulling the chessboard with Darkbeorn. Nearby, Lissë, Calion, and Lassë petted a pair of shaggy hounds, much to those worthy beasts’ enjoyment. And there was Míriel, ensconced in a corner with Direbeorn, listening intently to the shape shifter’s tale. As I caught my daughter’s eye, she smiled and raised a hand, beckoning me to join her.

“Welcome to our house and hearth, Tauriel,” Direbeorn greeted, as Míriel slid over on her stool to give me a place to perch.

“I am glad to see your house again,” I nodded, making myself comfortable beside my daughter. “I have many happy memories of this place, and of your grandfather. It is still beautiful, no matter the cold. I am glad to meet more of your folk, as well. You are all as formidable as your grandfather was.”

The shape shifter grinned, pleased at my compliments. “You are well spoken, Tauriel, as is your daughter. Given my grandsire’s stories, I had thought you would be much louder.”

I laughed. “Your grandfather must’ve lingered near some of the Dwarvish caravans Kíli and I escorted. Some of them gave me occasion to be very loud.”

“So he said,” Direbeorn laughed softly. “He also told me that Míriel was gifted with the ability to quiet any Dwarf with just a look, no matter that she was just a babe.”

“Not true,” Míriel demurred with a smile. “I have never managed to silence Khel in any situation.”

“I think no one, whether Dwarf, Elf, Man, or even the Valar, can do that,” I gave her an assessing look. “But Khel is her brother, and therefore immune to sisterly admonitions. But I know of no other who has tried to pull the hair of the King of Mirkwood without fear of recrimination.”

“Did you?” Direbeorn chortled, clapping her hands in delight. “I would have liked to have seen that! He is a most fierce warrior!”

“I was a babe,” Míriel blushed. “Babes have no fear.”

“Nether does King Thranduil,” Direbeorn grinned. “Though perhaps an icy winter exasperates him, because it dares to challenge his coldness with its own.”

“He was even icier before the firedrake fell,” I smiled, recalling how the Orc Spawn had helped to rid Mirkwood of errant ring magic.

“So my grandfather told me,” our hostess nodded. “Perhaps he is warmer to his allies since that time. But he remains fierce against our common foes. It will be good to fight beside him when the time comes. My folk will gladly pair our fire with his ice against any Orc.”

“That moment will likely come sooner than any of us expect,” I replied. “It will be a hard moment, but when your folk and mine stand together, we will make the most of it.”

The shape shifter grunted in fervent agreement. “So we will. And you are right, Tauriel, about that moment being sooner rather than later. I expect my folk will travel with you when you leave our lands for Mirkwood. We have pledged to fight beside our neighbors. Better we bolster the fight under the trees, where we will have the terrain to our advantage.”

Míriel’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “I thought that staying under the trees would benefit the Orcs, because they dislike sunlight, and even a winter canopy offers more shade than open land. And the great spiders would bolster the Orcs.”

“Better to fight them under the trees than on open land, where they can amass into mounted packs,” I said.

Direbeorn nodded. “Your points are good, Míriel, yes. But Tauriel is a canny warrior. Wargs are poor fighters under the dense trees, and Orcs are just as poor in the canopy. That leaves the Orcs afoot, where they make easier targets. As for the spiders, they ally themselves with no one, and feast on Wargs and Orcs as greedily as they do Elves and Men.”

Míriel hummed thoughtfully. “Wargs and Orcs on the ground, spiders above, and Elves and Men between them. That’ll call for a different strategy. I don’t want us to become the meat between two slices of foul bread.”

My daughter’s apt analogy made me chuckle. “Mirkwood has long faced such fights, Míriel. Our enemies will not find us an easy or savory meal.”

I said those words firmly, as if they were true and not merely a brave hope in the face of great odds.

* * *

We spent three days in the relative safety of the Beornings’ house. The senior Orc Spawn spent much time with Master Oteriel and Grimbeorn, plotting whatever they plotted. As my speculations were no help in this, I turned my regard on this calm sanctuary, soaking up as much of its humble goodness as I could. Perhaps I might see this place again after the coming war, but I contemplated the bee skeps, the marvelous dogs, ponies, sheep, and other animals that called the Beornings friends, and the well tended gardens as if this visit was my last. Even my rambunctious brother Khel felt the solid quiet of the place, and walked among the animals as silently as a fox. And if I thought Alassë was uncharacteristically thoughtful, her mother was more so. Even our most irrepressible folk sensed the changing of the times, and took what respite they could, like taking a deep breath before plunging into deeper waters.

Soon enough, we packed our tents, strapped on our armor, and saddled our horses. The Imladris Elves were not alone in their preparations; many of the Beornings would bolster our forces when we rode through the great wooden doors. Many would go afoot, but several would ride the Beornings’ fine, fat ponies to the borders of Mirkwood. What great riders the Beornings were – they used no saddles, and only halter ropes rather than reins to guide their mounts. Tada said they reminded him of the great Dwarvish riders from the steppe pony clans far, far to our northwest, who were also fluid, intuitive riders.

As we got underway, I expected us to head northeast at a reduced pace to accommodate the Beornings’ smaller ponies as well as their runners, but I was soon shown otherwise. Direbeorn and Darkbeorn had already proven their ability to keep pace with our horses for long distances, and the rest of their folk were as strong afoot. True, their ponies had much shorter legs, but they were nimble and strong, and matched the nearly the full speed of our tall, Elvish-bred mounts. Once we reached Mirkwood, the Beornings would loose their ponies and travel afoot, for the dense trees and narrow paths would slow everyone’s progress to little more than a walk.

Our commanders were not ones to rely merely on a fast pace to guard our company; we deployed a full measure of outriders and scouts. However, we met no Orcs during our journey to the outskirts of Mirkwood, which disquieted me. Perhaps their absence was not due to the Beornings’ care.

“Mamil says that _Nésamil_ Tauriel says that we should’ve met at least a few Orcs,” Alassë murmured as we gathered with our brothers and sister just outside Mirkwood’s glowering edge. “Since we haven’t, they’re likely amassing somewhere, which isn’t good.”

“If they’re amassing on King Thranduil’s caverns, then they lie between us and them,” Calion offered. “Not good for us at all.”

“We will show them the peril of the classic pincer maneuver.” Mamil had come up to our gather on such silent feet that none of us had realized she was there until she’d spoken. Her tone was so offhand that one who didn’t know her would consider it flippant. But I recognized the intensity in her eyes that mingled worry with fierceness, eyes that scanned us only briefly before they turned towards the tangled edge of Mirkwood.

“Aye, ’t would be good to hammer Orcs against Mirkwood’s anvil with Imladris’s hammer,” Izril agreed, fingers caressing the head of the axe that rode on his belt.

“I hope we will not have the chance to do so quite yet.” Mamil turned her bright green eyes away from the trees to search all of ours. “The Beornings are releasing their ponies for their journey home. We’ll shift our baggage to bear theirs with ours, and we’ll ride double to spare as many of their folk under the trees as possible. Check your things and pack them as small as you can. We won’t linger here long.”

Mamil moved away swiftly, trusting us to follow her directions, which we were not slow to do. As our gear was already packed as small as we could manage, we had little to do but watch the Beornings send their ponies back towards Beorn’s great house. Journey bread and water went around for a quick snack, then we remounted our horses. All of us took one of the skin changer folk behind us – I was not surprised when Direbeorn chose to share my horse – and we filed under the trees.

I well remembered the disconcerting silence and sense of heaviness that met us just after a few steps into the forest. Mirkwood had once been a great and vibrant forest, but now it was dying and decaying, full of poisonous spores and dead air. Elves found the forest stifling and dank, and Dwarves found it a miasma of evil visions and treacherous footing. Men usually reacted even less well than Dwarves – they sickened fast in the thick stew that Mirkwood called air. But the Beornings seemed to take the ill atmosphere better than other Men. They hated the rotten stench as much as the next warrior – Direbeorn muttered under her breath with almost every breath – but perhaps their close attunement with nature gave them a little grace.

“It does not,” Direbeorn spat, though quietly. “The soul of the wood is far fouler than the smell, and makes my skin slither. But one poison repels another – my outrage is what keeps the treacherous air at bay.”

“For now,” I whispered in return. “I would be glad to add my hands to a more thorough cleansing. The air would certainly clear without so many Orcs and spiders.”

Direbeorn tapped her clenched fist against my armored shoulder. “Spoken as a true friend of the trees. It won’t be long before we put our hands to work.”

I hummed agreement, then we fell back into our watchful silence.

* * *

When we left the sanctuary of Beorn’s house three days ago, my feelings were mixed. On the one hand, we were moving at last – patience, even after living so many decades with long-considering Elves, was still not my strongest virtue. On the other, we were moving closer and closer to what would likely become the greatest war of our age. My wife, my bairns, my friends, all the other enemies of Sauron, and I faced no easy path, no matter which one we took, no matter what our starting point. No matter where one looked on a map, conflict raged, or soon would. Farthest south, the Lórien Elves would face the Orcs of Dol Guldur. Slightly more northeast, the kingdoms of Men would face the main brunt of Mordor’s forces. More northwards, my Dwarvish kin of Erebor and the Iron Mountains and the Men of Dale and Esgaroth would face armies of Easterling Men. And farthest north, King Thranduil’s Elves would endure the Orcs of Gundebad, and likely of Moria as well. By opening conflict on so many fronts, some might’ve thought that Sauron had abandoned conventional battle strategy. But to me, it revealed the source of Sauron’s confidence and surety – he had troops to spare, so many that he didn’t care how many he lost by attacking on so many fronts. He sought to overwhelm by sheer force of numbers.

No wonder Lord Elrond had sent off the Fellowship in stealth and secrecy. It was the only chance we had, to slip between the cracks of Sauron’s great strength.

The size of Sauron’s forces dictated the road we’d take in our push to reach King Thranduil’s kingdom. Initially, we’d debated whether it was better to take the Old Forest Road that Tauriel and I had helped rebuild for the Dwarves emigrating to Erebor. It was still in good repair, and would greatly speed our travel. But if what we’d heard about the Easterlings amassing on Erebor’s border were true, then we’d have to fight our way through them once we left the forest and headed north. We were only a hundred Elves, and perhaps slightly fewer of the Beornings, and we’d stand no chance against an entire army of Men. We’d also likely face whatever Orcs from Dol Guldur weren’t sent against Lórien. So that set our path northeast, across the Beornings’ land, then through Mirkwood, just as Uncle Thorin’s party had done eighty-seven years ago, and as Lord Elrond’s party had soon after. Surely we’d meet Orcs under the trees, but the choking undergrowth would keep the Orcs from amassing anything more than small guerrilla bands, against which we stood an excellent chance. Tauriel’s treetop fighting tactics were well ingrained in the Imladris Elves, and I expected that the Beornings were seasoned warriors on such terrain, too.

Having said that... I chewed on what we’d find in the decaying forest for the three days it took to reach it. It’s said that doing something foolish once might be an accident, but doing that something twice was asking for a slap. Yet here I was, creeping into the most evil, diseased, malicious forest in Middle Earth for a third time. I hoped this didn’t merit the Valar looking so askance at me that I got more than a slap for my impudence. _It’s for a good cause,_ I thought at them. _Better this than letting an evil Maiar desecrate all of Middle Earth as badly as this forest was, yah? So think of me as a fool if you choose, but a fool trying to do good._

I got no indication that anyone had heard me, so I put my head down and urged my horse after my comrades.

As was true on my two previous treks under Mirkwood’s dank trees, we traveled on the broken path that I suppose Elves had first carved countless centuries ago. In no way did it look familiar – how was a Dwarf to recognize one vine snarled tree from another? The sensation of being smothered was certainly unpleasantly familiar, and so was the vaguely hallucinogenic cast of the dim light foggy with mist, spores, and who knew what else. The Elves felt this much less than I did, though none of them looked less than uneasy. The Beornings gagged and spit, but they kept their wits about them better than I did. I was little use to anyone for several days as I adjusted to the fetid atmosphere. Tauriel had prepared for this by stowing a small bottle of cordial that helped to clear my head, but I sipped it sparingly, not wanting to run out of it on the eve of a fight. I was the only one who needed this cordial; thankfully, my Dwarvish weakness under nasty trees didn’t seem to affect my bairns.

Gradually, as I grew more accustomed to the forest, I did notice a difference between this journey and those of years ago. The forest was more silent, and darker, and the thick webs of the huge black spiders that infested it had spread further out. We did our best to pass as quietly as possible underneath the tangled webs, so as not to call attention to ourselves.

“ _Skator kurvanog_ ,” I whispered. Ahead of us was a massive clot of webs, the biggest we’d yet encountered. As Khel eyed me with concern, I pointed to the webs, unsurprised when he blanched. “The queen lurking in that would call three Elvish horses a snack. Curse the lot of them.”

“Better to thank them,” Tauriel whispered. She’d left her position at the front of the line to pass the word to us as quietly as possible. “If they’re no friends of ours, then they’re no friends of anything else. They’re likely why we haven’t met any Orcs yet.”

She passed on to alert the rest of our party, leaving Khel to lean towards me. “True enough, as long as they don’t take after us because we’re not as smart as the Orcs to stay away from them. Do they talk to the Orcs at all, do you think?”

“As in, would they alert the Orcs that we’re here? As allies would?”

Khel nodded.

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “They’re concerned with food, and little else. Your Maamr told me they cannibalize their own, so they don’t ally even with their own kind.”

Khel hummed. “Small comfort.”

“But comfort nevertheless.”

We fell silent as we crept around the infestation. That meant we had to go off the faint path, but even just the few yards that required was perilous. Just a step or two off the path plunged us into tangles of roots and all manner of rotten detritus, which meant footing was nearly as slippery as icy rock. Our horses found it hard to see where to put their hooves, and the noise was unavoidable, no matter how we all worked to ease them. I paused to string my bow and have my quiver to hand; Mirkwood’s black spiders might have poor eyesight and no ears, but their hairy bodies picked up every vibration in the air as well as through their webs. If we roused them, my arrows would serve us best if I could strike before they came too close. Míriel and Lissë were just behind me, and both of them chose to string their bows as I did. I kept bow with nocked arrow ready in one hand as I tried to guide my horse around a particularly knobby outcropping of roots –

“They’ve heard us,” the Beorning to my left hissed, pointing up at the thickest part of the web which swathed the top of the tree just to my right. “Be ready!”

I passed the warning to my bairns, who passed it swiftly along even as they looked up at the web. _Dahaut_ , the thick white strands flexed and stretched and thrummed as some enormous weight shifted above it. No sign yet of a target, so I risked scanning wider afield –

Just in time – an outlying spider was creeping up behind me.

“Behind us!” I shouted – no point in remaining silent now that we’d been spotted. “Watch for outliers!”

I shot at once, but my horse chose this moment to stumble over the troublesome roots, and jarred my arm so that I didn’t hit the spider’s head, but it’s bulbous body. No matter, Míriel’s shaft finished what mine started, and the creature shrieked as it lost its hold on branch and web. The body crashed so heavily that several of the horses were spooked, but the Beornings grabbed them before they could bolt. The Elves took on our defense, given that the spiders were better targets for our arrows than the Beornings’ knives. Direbeorn slithered off Tauriel’s horse, shifted to her bear shape, and with a pair of her kind dealt with the pair of spiders that thought to drop themselves in our midst. They didn’t climb the slimy trees, but by standing on their hind paws they inflicted great damage on the spiders’ softer underbellies.

At least a dozen spiders lay dead or dying after as many moments had passed. Tauriel was not content with that, and she along with several of her maids climbed up into the trees to take the fight to whatever spiders remained in the nest. The thick webs precluded any sight of the battle, but the sounds of forged steel striking thick spider shell, an occasional Elvish grunt or curse, and the occasional fall of a leg or head were descriptive enough. The Elves soon slithered down bearing knives well clotted with black spider blood.

Word passed quickly for us to hurry past the empty webs, so there was no time to celebrate our victory. Since we didn’t have to worry about silence for a few moments, we shoved and hauled our steeds back to the path and better footing, then quickly made our way on. Tauriel stood just to the side as the rest of our company went on, ensuring that we’d left no spiders to trail us. When I passed her, I winked, which eased my fiery Elf maid’s fierce expression into a smile.

“You are irrepressible,” she murmured.

I shrugged with much more nonchalance than the situation merited. “It’s your fault, isn’t it? If you put a Dwarf in mind of the moment when he lost his heart to a fierce Elf maid, you can’t expect him not to savor it.”

“Oh, you wish that I’d ridden one of the dead spiders out of the tree?” she replied.

“I wish, _amrâlimê_ , that we were back in Imladris, in our bedchamber with the door locked behind us so that you’d have a proper ride,” I said, kissing my fingers and blowing on them towards Tauriel. “But if I can’t have that, don’t begrudge me of thinking of the moment when I met you.”

“Nor me the same, _a’maelamin_ ,” Tauriel smiled as I passed, sending me on my way with the same caress.

Annalisseo and Lassë were behind me, trying to smother wide eyes and giggles at the flightiness of their elders, which widened my smile to a jaunty grin. Not even the stink of black spider blood and noxious spores could cloud my savor of the treasure Tauriel and I had shared since her infamous spider ride.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An announcement from the Eldritch Mage.

To all of you,

As you've noticed, I haven't posted at my usual rate lately. My Mom died this past Sunday after a long illness, and while I have anticipated this for some time, it has not been an easy process. I am in the midst of arrangements, so please be patient as I work through the details. I will be back riding alongside the Orc Spawn shortly.

Give your sweet parents, Dads as well as Moms, a hug today, as well as your children, and anyone else in your world whom you value. We all have our Clan Ffyrnigs, our Orc Spawn, whether formed by blood or by association, and the love we share with them keeps us strong, healthy, and happy. They are our foundation.

Kind Regards,

EM


End file.
